


X-Crossed

by cgf_kat



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Action, Angst, Drama, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-04 05:59:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cgf_kat/pseuds/cgf_kat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy has just lost her mother, and is trapped in 1963 being hunted by a demon. Young Charles Xavier has just lost his legs, and so much more. Can these two help each other through more than keeping the timeline in check?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first few chapters of this have been out for a while over at fanfiction.net, and I haven't written on it much this year, but summer is coming soon. Do You Love Me will also be wrapping up soon. So I'll be posting what I have of this over the next few weeks, and then by the time I get to the end of what I've got summer should be here and I can get back to writing it! Yay!
> 
> LOL, please do let me know if you like it enough that you "want" me to continue. :) Thanks!

Sunnydale, California - 2001

Buffy Summers bit her lip to keep from screaming as she gave the punching bag a few more good blows. Giles had been back here an hour or two ago, but he was only human. He'd long since tired out for the day and gone back up to the front of the store. She was pretty sure most of the others were out there too.

It was just easier to be here at the Magic Box, since Joyce had died. Buffy missed her mother, and if she wasn't training or on patrol or here doing...something, then she was thinking about it. The Magic Box was safe and neutral. Joyce had never really been here. Here she didn't have to be alone, but she didn't have to be anywhere that she could associate with her mother, either.

Buffy spun to kick the bag one last time, nearly knocking it from where it was mounted to the ceiling. If she kept going she really might damage something.

Maybe it was time to call it a day on the training.

She let out a breath and dropped onto the couch at the side of the training room to cool off. She didn't sweat much, usually, but it was always good to calm down after a workout. Eventually she got up, made her way into the bathroom and exchanged her workout clothes for the regular clothes she'd been wearing earlier today. She let her hair back down and combed through it with her fingers, and tossed the workout clothes into a cabinet at the back of the bathroom where she'd been keeping two or three pairs of them since Giles had bought the Magic Box and set up the training room for her.

Refreshed and feeling a little better after the activity—at least physically—Buffy stepped out into the main shop. Willow, Tara, and Xander were at the table chatting and eating a takeout dinner, while Giles was at his desk and Dawn sat at the counter doing homework and also finishing dinner. Anya was behind the counter checking and counting the money in the register, as she was so fond of doing. The radio on the desk was on and there was extra food on the table, and Buffy could almost imagine that everything was fine. Joyce wasn't gone and there was no psycho hellgod bitch after her sister.

Buffy let out a breath and made a beeline for the table to pick up one of the unopened containers of Chinese. "This stuff fair game?"

"Have at," Xander told her.

She nodded and swiped a fresh pair of chopsticks as she sat down across the table from him.

"You were in there for quite a while," Giles commented from behind her. That was definitely concern in his voice, but Buffy shrugged it off.

"Can never train too much, right?"

Giles leaned back a bit in his desk chair and was practically beside her, thanks to where at the table she was sitting, and he did that now so he could look at her. "That's true, but you shouldn't exhaust yourself. You wouldn't be ready if...well, you are the Slayer. Anything could happen at any time."

Buffy glanced back at him for a moment. "I know. Don't worry; I've got everything under control." When she said everything she meant everything, or she wanted to have it under control, anyway, and she was pretty sure Giles knew what she meant. He nodded and turned back to his paperwork.

Everyone else was quiet then, and Buffy noticed that the station the radio had been left on wasn't playing music anymore. It was a news bulletin.

_"Growing concern sweeps the nation as governments around the globe react to the rising mutant problem. Leaders worldwide wonder if it is, indeed, a problem, as the presence of mutants in today's society becomes more and more apparent. The president has been in meetings this week—"_

Giles made a noise in the back of his throat and switched to another station. "People don't understand what it is that they're seeing," he said, shaking his head. "Not that they would be any less irrational about it if they did."

"What do you mean?" Xander asked.

Anya closed the cash drawer and leaned on the counter. "The truth is that these people that are being called mutants are simply part demon, somewhere along the line. Some of them have more demon in them others, some can look completely normal but have demon attributes, and then of course there are just the real flat-out demons that people are mistaking for mutated humans. As far as I know, there _are_ no mutated humans. If they're mutated or different, they're not entirely human. I mean, I could be wrong...but I'm usually not."

Willow shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of food before she spoke. "I kinda figured that. We've been hearing about mutants on and off since we were kids. I always thought it was all made up, like Big Foot and stuff, and then I met Buffy and figured it all had to do with the vampire and demon world and everything."

Giles nodded. "As far as I or the Council knows, mutation in a single human generation can't go as far as some are saying has happened. Granted, there is always the chance I could be wrong, I suppose...but personally I firmly believe that those affected simply have some amount of nonhuman blood."

"Even the people that look normal and have normal parents, but have mutations?" Tara asked. "I've heard of people like that."

"If the demon in their bloodline is far enough back, the demon attributes could have very well skipped a generation or few. Humanoid demons have been interbreeding with humans for centuries."

"The not-so-humanoid ones too," Anya added. "That's pretty much where the humanoid demons came from."

"True," Giles agreed.

Buffy shuddered. "Yeah. Cause most of us know what a _pure_ demon looks like."

"One kind of pure demon," Willow pointed out.

"Either way, met one; not so keen on meeting another one."

"Amen," Willow, Xander, and Dawn chorused at the same time.

Buffy twisted to glare at Dawn. " _You_ were not supposed to be there."

"Hey, I helped didn't I!"

" _Cordelia_ dusted more vampires than you did that night."

Dawn made a face. "I _tried_...okay, so I mostly hid; what, I was _twelve_! I _wanted_ to help. It's the thought that counts, right?"

Buffy opened her mouth to retort again, but Giles cut them off. "Honestly, are the two of you really going to argue over an incident that happened almost two years ago?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Oh, I could go all the way back to how Dawn shouldn't have followed me when I went to fight the Master."

"If I hadn't followed you you woulda _drowned,_ " Dawn protested.

"You didn't even know how to do CPR! Xander had to do it when he and Angel got there."

Then they both fell silent and looked at Giles, aware he was watching them with his own eyebrows up. Dawn shrugged. "It's what we do."

Buffy managed to smile a little at that, and she could tell that it did her friends and her Watcher good to see her and her sister bantering again. It _felt_ good to be doing it again. Maybe she wasn't as into it as she had been in the past, but she supposed that would come with time. And with seeing the Glory problem taken care of.

Dawn turned back to her homework for a minute or two, but then quickly looked up again. "Uhm...Willow, I'm kind of sucking at the geometry here. Would you mind...?"

"Yeah, sure." The young witch put down what was left of her food and crossed to the counter. "What have we got?"

Buffy leaned back in her seat to eat, watching her best friend help her sister with homework, and felt extremely blessed that even though her biological relations were now extremely scarce, she was not without family.

"I hate circles," Dawn grumbled. "Give me a nice triangle."

"Huh. Really? I always thoughts circles were simpler," Willow replied.

"You think everything's simple, Will," Xander called from the table.

"I never was much the fan of geometry myself," Giles added, though he didn't look up from his paperwork. They all stared at him, and then he looked up, befuddled. "What?"

Xander had to close his mouth before he could open it again to speak. "It's pretty much just the you admitting to not loving any scholastic subject at all."

"I was once young and frustrated with school, as well," the Watcher answered, almost defensively.

Buffy knew that. She was the only one who had heard that story from him first hand. What the others knew they'd heard from her, and she'd left out most of the details out of respect for Giles's privacy. Maybe the stupid things he'd done when he was younger had ended up affecting them all later—Eyghon, Ethan, etc—but he still didn't deserve to be gossiped about as if they were all in middle school again. So she'd kept as much of that as she could to herself.

Willow winced. "Maybe now's not the time to tell you about the tweed diapers joke."

"Excuse me?"

"We were very very young and very very stupid," Buffy cut in. "Way in the past."

"Way in the past," Xander agreed.

Willow nodded quickly. "Very stupid and very in the past."

Giles just shook his head in that way he had, where they just knew he was thinking: _Young people these days. Tsk Tsk._ Or: _Huh. Americans._ But he loved them anyway, of course. He wouldn't be Giles if he didn't.

Dawn tried to get the attention back to her homework. "So, how do you—"

There was a faint popping sound. No flash or bang; just a small pop. But it made everyone shut up and turn and stare anyway, looking for what had made it. It had come from just above the table, and when Buffy looked all she saw was a small metallic object falling to its surface. It took a moment, but everyone figured out what they were supposed to be looking at, and they all focused on the thing.

"Okay where the hell did that come from?" Xander questioned.

"What _is_ it?" Tara asked. It was a metallic rectangle, sort of a block, maybe two by three inches and half an inch or so thick, and it seemed bright and its edges and sides completely smooth. Buffy glanced right to see Anya, Willow, and Dawn coming over from the counter, then glanced the other way to see that Giles was scowling in confusion.

"I have no idea," her Watcher said. He looked up for a moment. "It seemed to just..."

"Appear," Buffy finished.

"Precisely."

"Which is not normal."

"No, not at all. Entirely strange."

Then it got stranger, as six small legs unfolded themselves from the block and it started to crawl around the table like some sort of futuristic bug.

Xander jerked back. "Whoa!"

Two round holes opened up on one of its shorter sides, maybe lenses that now seemed kinda like eyes. Another opened on top, and it seemed to be looking for something. It skittered around for a few seconds before stopping in front of Buffy. It's thin legs let it crane up to look at her.

_"Buffy Summers."_

The small, digitized voice almost made Buffy jump out of _her_ skin. " _What_?"

"It knows who you are," Giles said incredulously.

_"Buffy Summers. Voice print match. Face match. Identity positive."_

"Okay, great, so you talk. What the hell _are_ you?"

Willow's eyes were so wide they seemed in danger of popping out of her skull. "Is it just me, or is this way too much like one of those comic books Xander never shuts up about?"

"Hey—"

"Xander."

"Okay; you have a point..."

_"Sent in warning. Danger approaching."_

"What are you talking about? What kind of danger?" Buffy asked, puzzled.

_"Demon. Traveling by time portal."_

" _Time_ portal?" Giles questioned. "Portals are an easy enough thing to come by, relatively speaking, but between dimensions and such...not time. Granted, as versatile as magic is it can be done, but time travel is certainly not a day-to-day thing. The ways it can be done are limited—"

The little bot turned towards the Watcher for a moment. _"Please refrain from speaking. Information being relayed is imperative."_

Giles's mouth hung open, and Xander laughed once, loudly, and the others grinned a little. "G-man, I think a bug robot from the future just told you shut up." Then the thing turn to look at him, and he shut his mouth. He was quiet then, looking a bit sheepish, and the bot bobbed once as if to say, good, stay that way. Then it turned back to Buffy.

_"Portal generated by technological/magical device. Traveler from year 2892 A.D. Mission: eliminate slayer Buffy Summers. Reason: believed to be the root of difficulties for demonkind stemming from 21_ _st_ _century onward, including temporary banishment from earth dimension entirely."_

"Damn," Dawn said quietly. "Maybe I should respect you a little more. Apparently you're really gonna kick ass." There was sarcasm, but maybe she meant it a little. Buffy didn't particularly care one way or the other at the moment; she was trying to wrap her head around any of this.

"Okay..." she said slowly. "Assuming I believe you and we're not _all_ crazy, considering we're all seeing you, what am I up against? How much time do we have?"

The lens on the bot's top activated, and a small hologram appeared above it. Buffy didn't like what she saw.

_"Kaltar demon. Warrior breed. Not yet existent in this form in your century. Further evolved form of Kaltesh demon."_

Giles frowned to himself as he stood and stepped up to the table to examine the hologram. "Kalteshes are quite nasty in their own right even now. Luckily, they're rare on earth."

The hologram showed a hulking beast that was relatively humanoid, but with four well-muscled arms easily the size of a small tree trunk in life, Buffy would have guessed. The legs were a bit bigger even than that. There were two curved horns on top of the thing's head. The one in the hologram wore only simple, leather-looking shorts, and its skin was a sickly pale-purple color, she thought, but with the blueish tint of the hologram projection she couldn't be exactly sure.

_"Height, 2.2 meters. Weight, approximately 800 kilograms."_

Buffy looked to Giles in confusion. "Translation?" Willow probably knew the answer too; she already looked more worried.

Giles paused a moment to think. "That's...about 7 feet, and about 1500 pounds, I believe."

"Closer to 1800," Willow corrected nervously.

"That's almost twice the size of a current Kaltesh demon," Anya provided. "And the secondary arms of a Kaltesh are only half the size of its primary arms; accordingly, they're used for secondary tasks. It's useful it battle, but apparently this new-and-improved version has full use of both sets. Also, Kalteshes only have stubby horns."

"Are...A-are we taking this seriously?" Tara asked.

"This is...more than unprecedented, but I don't know that we can afford not to," Giles sighed.

"Wait. How could they change so much in just a few hundred years?" Dawn asked. "If we _are_ taking this seriously, anyway."

Anya shrugged. "It's simple, really. Time moves much more quickly in their dimension. By the 29th century it would have been several hundred thousand years there."

"And so we have a Kaltar demon," Buffy said. "Great. That's just great. Weaknesses?"

 _"Kaltars a recent appearance in home century. Weaknesses as yet unknown. Thus urgency of warning,"_ the little bot replied.

"Are you kidding me?"

_"Not programmed to kid."_

They all just stared at the thing for a moment, a little stumped by that answer.

Xander's eyebrows went up. "Neat. It can make jokes."

_"Not programmed to make jokes."_

Buffy waved Xander into silence before he could say anything else. "Uh huh." She ran a hand through her hair in frustration. God, they really did not need another major problem right now. What the hell were they supposed to do about this? She'd killed big demons, and it wasn't like this thing was _insanely_ massive, but it was still bigger than anything she'd killed before. And all indications pointed to the fact that it would probably have some technology way out of her league.

No wonder this was the beast the future had sent to kill her.

Not that she would let it.

She swallowed, going all business. "How much time?"

The bug-like robot went still, tilted up as if thinking. _"Accessing current time. Comparing with records."_

Meanwhile, Xander said, "Okay, I know I'm the geek here, but are we really taking information from a tiny robot from the 29th century or whatever?"

Suddenly the bot began to skitter frantically in a circle. _"Transit and arrival time off! Kaltar demon arrival imminent! Warning! Warning! Kaltar arrival imminent!"_ With that the thing abruptly fell silent and jumped from the table into the pocket of Buffy's jacket. It seemed for all the world like it was hiding.

"What? Where!" Buffy demanded.

"Here!" Giles shouted, just as there was a louder pop in the middle of the shop's floor, and suddenly the Kaltar was there, right _there_ , and the Scoobies were scattering.

"Everyone else outside!" Buffy called. Dawn was screaming, and it attracted the thing's attention. It swiped at the others, but everyone save Giles thankfully followed orders for once and sprinted for the door. It missed most of them, but Xander was the farthest around the table on his side and the last around it. The Kaltar demon's claws caught him in the shoulder and pulled him backward, and he was slammed to the floor. He should have been unconsious, but he was stubborn. Instead he just shouted in pain.

Buffy flew at the demon, giving it a solid kick to the torso. It staggered some, and only some, but that was enough for Willow and Anya to scrambled back just long enough to pull Xander up and get him out the door.

Now what? The demon was between her and the door to the training room where all the weapons where and why the _hell_ wasn't Giles outside yet?

The demon swung at her, and with no other choice Buffy ducked and practiced any evasion needed as she tried to work her way around to the door to the training room. She hoped _it_ hadn't done too much research on her and didn't know what she was doing.

She wasn't trying to land blows yet, but the ones she did land hardly seemed to do much good. The thing's skin was pretty tough, but not so tough that a good mace or battle axe wouldn't help. Of course, she'd still have to get around all four arms to get the head cut off, which was the only surefire way to kill it when she didn't know much about the specific breed. Cut the head off, and burn the body.

But first she _needed_ an axe. And a heavy-duty one.

She didn't see Giles anymore. Maybe he'd finally gotten outside. Good.

"Buffy!"

No, there he was, off to her left, holding just the sort of battle axe she'd been wishing for, and she realized he'd slipped into the training room while she'd kept the demon distracted. There was a pretty decent-sized mace in his other hand, too.

"Axe!" she called, and he tossed it. She could get angry at him for putting himself in unnecessary danger later. "Get out of here!" she shouted once she'd caught the axe. He slid the mace toward her on the ground, in case it was needed later, even as he started to move back toward the front door of the shop.

Buffy swung at the demon, managing to make a shallow cut in one arm. It roared—yeah, _roared_ —but that wasn't enough distraction to keep it from grabbing at Giles.

"Hey!" she cried, trying to regain its attention. "Target: me, remember!" But even as it deflected her attacks with its left arms and retained a few more mostly superficial cuts, it caught her Watcher in its right arms. However, that left its torso wide open, and Buffy went for it before the thing could hurt him.

But it grabbed her too, with its left arms. Damnit, the Kaltar was _fast_ , despite its size. It grabbed her and then it slammed both her and Giles into the shelves on the wall that was shared with the training room. Or rather, Giles hit the shelves and she mostly hit him. She felt the edge of one shelf bite into part of her back for a brief second before the Kaltar let them go and they tumbled to the floor in a heap, but that was it. Buffy was stunned and a little out of breath for a moment, but Giles had taken most of the damage. She'd heard a strangled grunt on impact from him, and then nothing. Damage. When her vision cleared enough to get a good look at him she realized that the hair on the back of his head was caked with blood.

"Giles!"

His eyes were also wide open.

" _Giles!_ "

In panic she nearly forgot about the demon until it grabbed her again and threw her to the other side of the room. She crashed into the glass counter, shattering the front, and landed on her ass. She scrambled to her feet, but couldn't help glancing at Giles again even as the Kaltar came at her once more.

He could just be stunned. He wasn't necessarily dead. He didn't have to be. He couldn't be. Was that a blink? Oh god oh _god_...

Buffy ducked a swing from the demon and dived to claim the mace from the floor. Maybe it would work a little better, somehow. The spikes were longer and stronger than some maces they had. Maybe that would help.

When she came up swinging she saw, for the first time, the device on the demon's bottom right wrist. Maybe that was the time-travel device the little robot had been talking about. And in reference to the bot...

 _"Battle progressing poorly,"_ chirped the little electronic voice from her pocket. _"Accessing magical power reserves."_

Buffy suddenly felt a surge of strength, and her next swing was more powerful. The spikes of the mace buried themselves in one of the demon's upper arms, and it roared again.

"You wait until _now_ on this!" Buffy cried in anger, jerking the mace out again.

_"Apologies."_

"Shut up!"

The Kaltar demon paused for the first time since it had appeared out of nowhere, and its eyes narrowed at it glared at her. Its gaze went straight to the pocket where the little bug-like robot was hiding, and as they squared off Buffy resisted the urge to look down at the pocket, too, and confirm whatever it might be thinking.

"The machine arrived on time," a gravelly voice growled.

"No idea what you're talking about, buddy."

It growled again and moved on her once more, but now she noticed it was favoring the injured arm a bit. Buffy, for her part, since she'd seen the device on the Kaltar's wrist, now had a plan. She had no idea yet if she was going to kill this thing this go-round, or if one of them was going to retreat, but at least she could keep the thing from going any other when and messing with the timeline. Actually, she really needed to do that right _now_. She needed to disable its time-traveling ability, scoop Giles up, and get the hell out of dodge. Maybe it wasn't the best idea to move him so roughly right now, but there was no choice.

He needed medical attention immediately...if he was even alive.

Damnit!

But she couldn't risk a glance that way now. She didn't know, and it was killing her, but she also had a much bigger problem. When the demon charged her she jumped deftly to the side and swung the mace at the wrist the device was attached to. The good news was, she hit it, at least glancingly, and it did damage.

The bad news was, the second the mace ripped into the device the shop faded out around her and began to morph into something or somewhere or somewhen else—or rather, everything changed except for the Kaltar demon, who was really pissed off now.

* * *

Westchester, New York - 1963

Charles Xavier knew he should be in bed, as late as it was, but it was becoming harder and harder to force himself to go. There was so much to do and all the time in the world to do it...but he wanted it _done_.

He'd planned for a long time to be a professor, but starting his own school was a different monster entirely. It was quite a lot of work. So many questions needed to be answered. How many students could they try to take on at first? Which parts of the mansion would be classrooms, and which would be dormitories? How many students to a room? How many teachers would be needed?

And of course there would be no efficient way of finding those teachers, much less the students, until Hank was able to complete rebuilding Cerebro. In truth, he hadn't really started. There had only been planning. They had to determine the best place to put it, and so far the most reasonable vote had been for underground. It would be more difficult, and it would take longer, but it would pay off in the end in terms of keeping the installation safe. There was talk of an entire underground level or two beneath the mansion. But how long would _that_ take?

Tonight he was leafing through catalogs, trying to determine what style of desks to order and how big the chalk boards should be. Perhaps if Charles knew what he was doing this would go more quickly, but he didn't. He was learning, though. Perhaps it would help if Alex and Sean were more the professional type, but they did what they could. And he did have Hank. Hank was becoming a very close friend, with both Raven and Erik gone, and it helped that they had something in common.

Both of them had gone through a major change in their lives recently. Hank had grown blue fur and now fully resembled the beast that had always been inside him, and he didn't know that he liked it. Charles had lost the use of his legs.

Charles pushed back from the desk in what had become something of an office for him—a corner room on the first floor with bookshelves and a sitting area, where he and the others had seen President Kennedy's television broadcast. Sometimes it was hard to be in here and remember that Erik and Raven and Moira were no longer here at the mansion, potentially just around a corner if he wanted to see them. He missed them all.

There were other rooms that would have worked as offices, but many of them weren't on the first floor. There was an elevator in the mansion, but it was old and slow and needed updating. He'd meant to have someone come look at it, to make sure it was at least safe, but he hadn't gotten around to it yet. He used it if he absolutely had to, but otherwise stayed on the ground floor. Anyway...this room had quite a nice view, out over the terrace and the lawn that sloped down beneath it to the trees. In the distance was the satellite dish Erik had...

All right. That was enough thinking for now. Maybe it really was time for bed. The battle between metal and wood and plastic and combination for the desks could continue tomorrow. On that note, a small part of him automatically thought wood or plastic, but there would still be metal screws and...but Charles quashed that thinking quickly. He and Erik had large differences in opinion, and he didn't doubt that it would lead to further conflict in the future, but he couldn't think of his friend as an enemy. He couldn't wrap his mind around it, much less when it came to Raven.

If he was honest with himself, he was...almost afraid of what the future would bring. But he wouldn't let it stop him. He couldn't. He had a job to do. They all did. There were so many mutants out there, young and old alike, and many of them frightened and unsure of what was happening to them. At least he could give some of them a place to go.

That was definitely enough thinking for tonight. That was it. He needed sleep. At least there he get could away from all of the whys and what ifs.

Charles backed his wheelchair farther away from the desk so he could come out from behind it, but as he did so he bumped hard into the back corner. Or he assumed it was hard. It sounded hard and he felt the chair lurch, but his legs felt nothing. Nothing at all.

Some people had some feeling. Some could wiggle a toe or two if they concentrated. Some could do more than that. God knew he'd read enough about it to know how much difference there was, case to case. But Charles felt nothing. Some people in this sort of condition had hope, but for him there was none. Not really. This was it. This was the rest of his life.

He tried twice more and finally got the blasted chair out from behind the desk. The bloody thing was powered, but it was still hard to maneuver sometimes—especially when he was tired as he was now. Hank worked on it on and off, trying to improve it. After all, he'd designed it. It had already been done, a surprise when for they brought Charles home from the hospital. The "X"s on the wheels had been Alex's idea, supported by Sean, and Hank had gone along with it. Moira had too, of course. She loved the chair—except for the fact that it was needed at all. The day they'd given it to him, the day after he came home, had been the last time he'd seen Moira since. She'd gone back to the CIA, and he'd had no choice but to cleanse her memories of the mansion before he sent her off. They could take no chances that anyone uninvited would be able to gain the information from her and find them.

God, he missed her. In those few short weeks that were now months gone it wasn't only his legs, his sister, and his best friend that Charles had lost. He had also lost a women he was convinced he could have loved.

Sleep. That was where he was headed.

Charles let out a breath and went for the door, but abruptly stopped and sucked a mouthful of air right back in.

He was suddenly aware of two new minds nearby, that he hadn't sensed at all merely a second before. Both were...more than average. One was strong, powerful. He sensed power, but not in the mutant sense. Not exactly. Or maybe whoever it was simply had a mutant power that he wasn't familiar with at all. The other mind, however...

Charles coiled back when he tried to touch it, and he couldn't remember doing that before. Ever. He had been shut out of minds before, thanks to that blasted helmet Erik had recovered from Shaw, but he had never come across a mind that he hesitated so completely to come in contact with. It was just so...different. So repulsive. He could sense that without even entering in any way. He almost felt as if he would come away dirty, or damaged.

Quickly Charles brought two fingers to his temple, focusing his powers even as he spun the wheelchair back around as quickly as it would spin so he could get at the nearest window. He reached out to the first mind he had sensed, but he already knew that whoever it was could not be safe—not with the possessor of that other mind so near. Danger was a certainty. Someone was in trouble.

Yes. The strong mind was frightened even though it was determined. It was strong, yet panicked, yet angry, and as he drew in closer...

Oh god, it was a girl. She was fighting for her very life, her only protection her fighting skills and...a mace? When he drew close enough to see through her eyes for a moment he saw a creature so strange it could only be a mutant. Some poor soul born so horribly wrong that even its mind was affected beyond repair. "Hank! Sean! Alex!"

Keeping a mental eye on the girl and her attacker, Charles called upstairs with his mind as well. He soon sensed that Hank was awake, in his lab, but Alex and Sean were asleep. _Alex! Sean! Wake up! Hank! I need all three of you downstairs immediately! There's trouble!_

All three of them were startled, of course. He sometimes spoke to them across the house that way if it was easier than going all the way to them in his wheelchair, but never in the middle of the night before. A jumble of thoughts came back to him in return.

_I'm up!_

_What the HELL, Charles?_

_Please tell me this isn't some kind of crazy new training tactic._

Sean, Hank, and Alex, respectively, the last very groggy. Charles shook his head to himself. _No. This is not a drill. There's a young woman outside, down the hill in the back, being attacked by what I assume to be a violent mutant. Though she may be a mutant herself. I have no idea where they've come from or what's prompted the attack, but the girl needs help. This creature is several times her size and strength._

He heard pounding on the stairs already, and in a moment all three of his housemates and fellow mutants stumbled into the room in various stages of dress. Hank was the only one still fully dressed and in the process of stripping off his lab coat, and he, of course, moved much more gracefully than the other two. The beast in him had its advantages.

Charles motioned them to the windows he was looking out, and pointed to where the battle was taking place. It took him a moment to find it from the window, as he'd been watching through the girl's mind. "There!"

"Got it," Hank said quickly. The other two nodded, and the three of them raced back out of the room, headed for the nearest exit.

When they were gone, Charles focused more closely the young woman's mind. He scrounged up a name, and called out to her. He sent out a wave of fortifying calm with the thought, hoping to help and also to keep from startling her into making a fatal mistake in battle.

_Buffy, just hold on. Help is on the way._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, ya'll. If anybody's even reading this it'd be awesome if somebody would actually say something. :P

_Buffy, just hold on. Help is on the way._

The sudden voice in her mind should have scared the crap out of her, but for some reason it didn't. However, Buffy still wanted to know where the hell it came from. _What?_

_My name is Charles Xavier. I'm a telepath, and that is how I can speak to you this way. I'm...unable to come myself, but three friends of mine are on their way to your aid from the house up the hill._

The voice had an accent, an English one, and even as she ducked the Kaltar's arms and swung the mace at its legs she realized that the demon's device could transport through space as well as time. They were somewhere else now, because the Magic Box was not on a hill and there were definitely no mansions nearby, not at any time. Were they in England? And _when_ the hell were they? And...oh god, she'd damaged the device. What if she couldn't get back? She'd never meant for it to act up and send them both somewhere else, but that was what she got for screwing with technology she didn't understand.

The extra boost of energy the little bot in her pocket seemed to be giving her was helping, but not enough. Buffy wasn't losing, but she wasn't winning, either. The fact that they were outside and it was dark _wasn't_ helping. She spun and swung again, grazing one of the demon's legs with the mace. It snarled and renewed its efforts to finish her off, and as she twisted to find a new angle of attack she caught another glimpse of the mansion at the top of the hill. _That's no house,_ she thought, to whoever had spoken to her, if they were still listening.

_Yes, well...nevermind! PLEASE focus on staying alive._

Buffy mentally shrugged. _I'm a good multi-tasker._ Maybe it was the whole telepathy thing this guy had going on, whatever _that_ was about, but she felt his surprise at her ability to be so glib while fighting for her life. She smiled to herself a little, and about that time managed to get enough momentum to land a kick to the Kaltar's momentarily exposed torso that sent it staggering back much more successfully than the first time she'd tried that. She came back quickly with the mace, aiming for the demon's head, but it moved just in time and the spines buried themselves in the thing's upper back.

The Kaltar roared and swiped at her, landing its claws in her thigh and tearing through the outside of it.

_Buffy!_

Buffy screamed before she could stop herself, and she landed on her backside. She lost her grip on the mace's handle, and the thing itself remained lodged in the demon's back as it straightened before going in for the kill.

_Okay...I could use that help right about—_

An awful shriek brought her hands to her ears, and from the shaking of the ground she assumed the Kaltar was stumbling in reaction, but she'd squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't know. Buffy forced them open again just as the horrible sound abated, and saw that the demon was indeed disoriented. It had staggered back quite a ways, and now three figures rushed past her in the dimness. One of them sent some sort of red beam or disc or...something, in the direction of the Kaltar, something that looked for all the world like some sort of energy blast, and it caught the demon in the side and she heard sizzling and another roar.

Buffy pushed herself up on her elbows, staring at the scene in front of her. The three male figures in front of her were squaring off with the Kaltar and...wait a minute, was one of them furry?

_Are these your friends? s_ he asked of the voice.

_Indeed they are_ , whoever-it-was answered, a bit proudly.

The furry one—a demon, she guessed, but apparently one of those on her side—and one of the others both covered their ears, and Buffy took that as a prompt to cover hers. The one in the middle made that shrieking sound then, and she realized that it had been him the first time, too. It was some sort of defensive ability, like the energy beam/disc thing the other one had shot.

Who _were_ these people?

The shrieking noise disoriented the Kaltar further, and it retreated toward the woods. The noise stopped just before it reached the treeline, and it paused and turned to look at them all. Buffy was sitting up now, and attempting to get to her feet. The wounded leg wasn't helping. Maybe she was the Slayer, but it still hurt like hell.

The demon made a gravelly, rolling noise, almost like a laugh. "You may have damaged my device, but it can be repaired," it called. "Then I can try again. If I must I can dispense with honor in battle and dispose of you as a child. Or I can simply kill you here. You are not safe, Buffy Summers. I will return."

Buffy made it up and stood balanced on her good leg, glaring across the grass at the demon. "What are you, the Terminator? Come back and let's finish this."

It laughed again. "I will. But not now." And the Kaltar disappeared into the trees.

The Slayer let out a breath. "Well how do you like that?" She swayed a bit on her feet.

_Are you all right?_ the voice asked. Charles Xavier. He'd said his name was Charles Xavier.

The three who had helped her hurried to her side, the furry one and the one who could make the noise taking her arms. They echoed Xavier's question. "I'm fine," she told them, hoping he could hear her too. She tried to take a step and sucked in a breath, because it hurt.

The furry one caught her. "That looks pretty nasty," he said, glancing down at the claw wounds. "I can carry you, if—"

"I do mind. Thanks, but...no."

He offered an arm instead. "Help, then?"

Buffy hesitated, but then nodded. She wasn't going very far on her own. She knew it would hurt a lot more if she weren't the Slayer, and that if that were the case she wouldn't be up at all—she'd be writhing on the ground in agony—so she supposed she could accept what help she still needed. At least since these guys had saved her life. She allowed the furry one and the other guy that had taken her arm a moment ago to pull her arms over their shoulders and help her up the hill.

"Hank McCoy," the furry one said by way of introduction. A demon with a last name? Much less a normal-sounding name at all? And now that she looked more closely and they moved more into the light  
coming from the mansion, she could see that he looked more like a cat than any demon she'd ever seen before.

The other young man helping her nodded to indicate himself as he settled her arm on his shoulder. "Sean Cassidy."

"Buffy."

The third one trailed behind at first, but then moved up so he could glance over at her. "So you're a Summers?" he asked.

Buffy blinked at him. "What?" Then she remembered that the demon had said her name.

The young man had short blonde hair, and he shrugged. "My name is Summers. Alex Summers." She noticed that none of these guys really had an accent. It was only the one she hadn't seen yet who did. Maybe they weren't in England.

"Oh...I have no idea if we're related." She looked around at the rich countryside, and the huge mansion. "It doesn't help that I have no idea where we are."

_Westchester, New York,_ Xavier answered in her mind. _My home. Our home, now._ Somehow Buffy simply knew that he meant himself and these three. She also knew that he was allowing all of them to hear him now. Indeed, the others acted as if they'd heard Xavier too, and none of them offered their current location because it had already been supplied.

"Great...the other side of the country, then."

"What?" Hank asked.

"I was in California."

"Damn," said Sean. "That's a long way. How the hell'd you get here?"

_Let's save all of that for later,_ Xavier told them all. _Get Miss Summers to the lab and see to her wounds. I'll meet you there._

They reached a terrace, and there were steps up to the house. Buffy tried to make it, but Sean and Hank ended up practically carrying her anyway. She was feeling the fight, too—more than usual. The extra energy had helped, but the Kaltar was just so _big_ , too strong. She was already feeling the bruises. She suddenly had an overwhelming urge to sleep.

But she couldn't sleep. She was trapped in New York in god-knew-when, that demon was out there, and...and Giles...

By the time they made it into the house and they got her up on a table in what did, indeed, seem to be a lab, the post-battle adrenaline that had been keeping her calm was wearing off.

"Okay look, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but what year is this?"

"It's 1963."

The voice was familiar, but she'd only heard it in her head up to now. Buffy looked toward the door, and suddenly realized what the voice had meant, when he said he couldn't come out to help himself.

A man not much older than any of the rest of them was in the doorway, in a wheelchair.

Buffy's eyebrows went up. "Charles Xavier, I presume."

"I am." He came closer and stopped the chair again near the table she was sitting on. "And you are Buffy Summers." He glanced at Alex. "It will be interesting to see if there's any relation."

Buffy shook her head. "Look, I'm really not concerned about that right now." She was sitting with one leg hanging partially from the table and her injured one stretched out on it. Hank McCoy had already cut away the ripped portion of her pants leg, with her permission, and was cleaning the wounds. She winced and swallowed. "Thanks for the help and all, but I have to get back out there. I have to find that thing and stop it before it hurts anyone else, and I have to find a way back, I—"

"Buffy, are you certain you're not simply in distress, disoriented from the attack...? The idea that...are you truly claiming to be from another time?"

"I'm not claiming anything. I am from another time. A few minutes ago it was 2001 and I was in Sunnydale, California. My friends and I were attacked by that thing out there. I fought it, and when I damaged the device on its wrist we ended up here. Apparently it's from way farther in the future than I am."

"What _was_ that thing?" Sean questioned.

Xavier sighed. "I failed to get anything from it, but it must be a mutant. An awful mutation, for certain, but a mutant nonetheless."

Buffy stared at him, wondering where the hell he'd come up with that answer when he had a demon for a friend. "What are talking about? It's a demon. It's a Kaltar demon, to be more specific—some new-and-improved version of a Kaltesh, or whatever. Look, can we please wrap this up? I have to find it! It's kind of my job. I have to stop it, and I have to get back. I have to help Giles—" She cut off because her throat clogged when she realized she still didn't even know if he was alive. "Oh god," she choked.

Then she realized they were all looking at her, mostly in utter confusion, but she didn't have the will to try to figure that out right now. "I'm sorry," she said. Hank finished taping gauze over the wounds, and she started to move off of the table. "I have to go. Thank you, but I have to go—"

"Buffy..."

The voice slowed her down. Maybe it was the concern, or maybe it was the accent, or maybe he was even using whatever powers it was that he had, exactly, but she paused long enough to look at him. Charles Xavier was studying her closely.

"Buffy, I'm not certain what has you so upset, or even what you're talking about, really, but if you'll allow me into your mind perhaps I can help. It would also go a long way toward us understanding one another." His eyebrows went up a bit in emphasis. "May I?"

If she weren't so tired maybe she would have been more stubborn, but these people had helped her and...she _was_ tired. And she had to admit that, trapped in another time for the time being...she might need help. Help a little bug-like robot couldn't give her.

The robot. She held a hand to her jacket pocket to make sure the little bot was still there, and she felt the metal block. The legs had retracted and it was dormant for now. No need to bring that up at the moment; it would only cause further confusion.

Buffy sat back again on the table. "I-I uhm...okay. I guess."

Charles nodded in acknowledgment, and brought two fingers to his temple. She supposed that must help him focus, because a moment later he was in her mind. She had a feeling that he didn't necessarily have to let her know he was there, but he did, and he let her see what he was accessing. It was just the basics—who she was, what she did, where she was from, what _time_ she was from—nothing too personal. The look on his face as he came across the stuff that told him she really was from 2001 and that she wasn't only Buffy Summers, but Buffy the Vampire Slayer...that was pretty interesting.

"Oh my god," he said quietly.

"Charles?" Hank asked. The other two voiced similar concerns, but he didn't answer. He was looking through the incident at the Magic Box just before Buffy had found herself in the past.

Finally he spoke, but he had not broken contact with Buffy yet. "Gentlemen, it appears this young woman is not insane. She is, in fact, from the future," he said incredulously.

Hank McCoy shook his head. "That's impossible."

"Obviously not," Alex countered.

Sean's eyes were wide as he looked back and forth between Buffy and Charles. "Far out." Buffy had the urge to look at him strangely until she remembered that this was the 60s.

"Yes, yes, we can discuss it in a moment, but right now I need to help Miss Summers with something."

"Help me?" she echoed.

_Yes,_ he said in her mind, and her mind only. _I know why you're upset, and I understand. You're afraid that your mentor, your, your..._

_Watcher..._

_Yes. You're afraid that he may be dead. If you can take me back to the memory of what happened to him I can enhance it for you. Perhaps we can tell for sure._

Buffy swallowed. _I don't know if I want to..._

She felt sympathy from Charles. _I know. If you don't want to do this now I understand completely, but I wanted you to know that I can help._

_Thanks._ She was silent for a moment or two, and then squeezed her eyes shut. _Just go ahead. I...I should know. I should know what I'm up against when I get back._

_Of course,_ Charles said gently.

Buffy brought up the memory, and Charles directed her to the first moment she'd been able to focus on Giles after they'd hit the ground. Xavier ran through it all from there, up until she'd been thrown into the glass counter and then seen Giles once more from there. It made her feel almost sick, seeing the blood and his wide-open eyes. Her breathing was picking up and a lump was forming in her throat, and she knew if she opened her eyes they wouldn't be dry. _Oh god, Giles, I'm so sorry..._

_Wait,_ Charles said suddenly. _Look, Buffy. It's all right._ He guided her to the moment she'd looked up and seen him from near the counter, when she thought she'd seen him blink. Charles helped her focus on that part of the memory and slow it down a bit.

Giles didn't blink, exactly, but he twitched, and his chest rose and fell more than once. Then, just as she was looking away, his eyes finally closed. She'd missed that entirely. She hadn't even known she'd seen it.

_He's alive, Buffy. It's all right,_ Charles repeated. He pulled away and gently broke contact, and Buffy sat still for a moment, eyes still closed.

"He's alive," Charles said aloud, quietly. "And I'm sure your friends in your time are taking care of him for you."

Buffy sobbed once and opened her eyes so she could dry them. Now she was a little embarrassed. Strangely enough she didn't care so much if Charles Xavier saw her cry, but there were three other people in here. Or two other people and one demon on the good side.

"Thank you," she managed eventually. "I uhm...thanks."

"You're welcome. I'm glad I could help. I'm glad it was good news."

"What just happened?" Alex asked.

Charles looked at Buffy, and when she nodded a bit he answered. "In the confusion of the battle before she arrived here, she wasn't able to determine what had happened to a close friend. I merely helped her examine her memories more closely to discover that he's all right."

Buffy grimaced. "As long as the others get him to a hospital right away." Even then there might not be any guarantee. But knowing Giles had been alive when she was pulled away helped tremendously. Either way, the look on Charles Xavier's face told her he understood.

"Oh..." Alex was saying.

"So what, exactly, is going on here?" Hank questioned then. He looked to Buffy. "How can you be from the future, and what do you mean by that thing was a demon?" Buffy opened her mouth, but then she didn't know where to begin in explaining. Charles, who already somewhat knew thanks to the contact with her mind, answered instead.

"I'm afraid it's rather complicated. Perhaps it would be better if we all got some rest, and continued this in the morning."

To Buffy, that sounded like the best idea she'd heard all day. "It was only mid-afternoon when I left 2001, but I kinda have to admit I'm beat. Sleep sounds good. I'd rather be out hunting that thing, but...I guess I'll be next to useless until I get some rest and this leg heals some more."

"Exactly," Charles agreed.

"You're just gonna leave us hangin' like that?" Sean protested.

Xavier nodded once, and smiled a bit in amusement. "Yes. Go back to bed, all of you," he said, eyeing his friends. They protested, but they retreated, finally leaving Buffy and Charles alone.

* * *

"Can you stand up yet?" Charles asked. Buffy nodded, but he brought his chair closer anyway so that she could brace on it as she slid carefully to the floor. "How are you feeling?"

"I've been a lot better," she admitted.

"Can you walk far enough for me to show you to a room? I hope I didn't get rid of the others prematurely; I'm afraid I can't help much, myself."

Buffy shook her head. "It's fine; holding onto your chair should be plenty enough help. By now I've already started to heal, but I guess you know that now."

He certainly did, and he was still trying to process everything he had seen in her mind. He let out a breath as he started slowly from the room and she followed, gripping the back of his chair. "I suppose I do, but...demons? Vampires? Slayers? I saw it all in your mind and yet I don't believe it."

"Do you think _I_ believed it at first? When I was called I was fifteen, I was in high school in LA, and I was an airhead. I was a cheerleader. None of that was conducive to helping me believe I was destined to help rid the world of creatures of the night. But what I don't get is, how can you not believe this stuff when you have Hank around?"

"What? What do you mean?"

"He's blue and furry and looks a lot like a big cat. Obviously he's not human."

"Of course he is. However, he is also a mutant, just like the rest of us here."

"Mutants," Buffy repeated. "Okay...that explains a lot."

"I suppose the general population has heard more of us in your time then?"

"Sort of. Yeah. We were actually kind of talking about mutants just before the big guy popped in. I never thought much of it before. I had a lot of other things on my mind."

"Of course," Charles said in understanding. He had seen flashes of her life in general, showing him how difficult it had been, protecting her town and, apparently, the world, from forces that threatened to destroy it. He still didn't want to believe that demons, much less vampires, or that world at all...were real, but...it was all right there, in her mind, and he would be able to tell the difference between true memory and a fantasy world.

What Buffy Summers had seen in her lifetime was no fantasy.

"Look, Charles..." Buffy began after a moment. "I hate to break it to you, but the fact is that people like you and Alex and Hank and Sean are probably only the way you are because there's some amount of demon blood in your background. That's really the only explanation. I mean mutations like what you guys can do just _happening_ , in normal humans? It's kind of out there."

"I don't think you understand. All of us had entirely normal parents, and—"

"Giles says if its far enough back the attributes could have skipped a generation or two, and—wait, _all_ of you? Meaning Hank too? How is that possible?"

"Because it's true." Charles stopped, and Buffy moved around so that they could see each other more easily as they talked. "You see, Hank himself once looked mostly normal. Only his feet were different, more like another set of hands, much like a primate. An experiment gone awry enhanced his mutated cells, and he became as he now. He's no more a demon than you or I."

She seemed to be thinking about that one. "Okay...I didn't see that one coming." She paused. "Well I'm not ready to jump right on the mutant bandwagon just yet, but I guess I can see where maybe you could be right."

Charles chuckled. "Well thank you for that small vote of confidence."

"Sure thing."

He smiled. "Well we are even then. After looking into your mind I can't deny that what you've seen since you were fifteen is real, but the rational part of me still holds out hope that perhaps you and the organization you were recruited by are mistaken and all of it is some great misunderstanding of groups of very different mutants."

"There are a lot of vampires out there. You really think so many people could mutate in exactly the same way?"

"I have recently learned that much more is possible than I ever thought before."

Buffy shrugged, and Charles continued toward the nearest empty bedroom. After a moment he stopped, and indicated the door. "Here you are. There's a bathroom just down the hall on the left, and there should be towels there if you'd like to bathe before you sleep or in the morning. I can find you some clothes tomorrow, or if you need anything now...I'm sorry, would you like anything to eat?"

"I'm not hungry after all that, thanks. I can get water in the bathroom and tomorrow is fine for finding clothes. You can get to bed; I'll be fine. Thank you."

"All right. Well, I do hope you can sleep well enough."

Her mouth pressed into a thin line for a moment. "You and me both. I'm gonna need it. If I wasn't about to fall over I'd already be back out there."

"Good night then."

"Good night."

Buffy ducked into the room and shut the door, leaving Charles alone in the hallway with all of the knowledge she had allowed him to glean from her mind. He would be lucky if he didn't go a bit crazy by morning. He doubted he would be able to sleep at all, but he supposed he should try.

* * *

The bedroom was large, but not too horribly huge, and there were chairs but Buffy simply went to the bed and dropped onto its edge to pull off her shoes and socks. Her jacket came off next, but before she let it fall to the floor she pulled the little robot from the pocket. It was still dormant, just a small, smooth block of metal.

"Hellooo? Earth to bug bot..." She laughed once. "Maybe that's what I should call you. Bug." Buffy sighed and set the bot on the nightstand.

She found the bathroom and washed up a bit, and she really did need some water. Then she retreated again to the bedroom she'd been given, pulled her pants off because they were cut up anyway, and crawled into the bed.

When Buffy woke the clock on the nightstand read nearly eleven in the morning, and she wondered why Dawn hadn't rousted her from bed yet.

Then she realized that it wasn't her clock and it wasn't her nightstand, and she remembered that she wasn't at home. The last thing she remembered was coming back from the bathroom. She didn't even recall her head hitting the pillow, though she hadn't been sure she would sleep at all. Buffy lay in bed for a bit longer, absorbing what she remembered of last night and the fact that she was in a mansion in New York in 1963. All the way across the country and nearly 40 years in the past from home.

God, this was insane. It didn't help when she glanced at the nightstand again and she saw the dormant robot. It was still quiet. Maybe its only purpose was to warn her. Maybe it wouldn't activate again. Strangely enough, that thought made her sad.

Finally she got out of bed and reclaimed her pants from the floor. They were still just as cut up, but she had to be decent to make her way out to the bathroom. She wondered how she would find Charles or the others in this house, and wondered if he'd found those clothes...but she needn't have worried about the latter. There was a small stack of clothing sitting in the hallway by her door when she opened it. When she examined them she realized that they were, in fact, women's clothes, and she realized that either there was a woman in the house that she had yet to meet, or there had been a woman here at one time.

Then again, Charles had mentioned that this was his home. That could mean it was his family home, which actually made more sense what with the sheer size of it. In that case, women's clothes in the house made sense. They could belong to anyone.

There were towels in the bathroom as Charles had promised, and a small but satisfactory assortment of choices in soap and shampoo. She also found that someone had left an ample supply of first aid stuffs on the counter by the sink, and she was able to redress the wounds on her leg, which were looking a lot less awful this morning.

Once Buffy had showered and dressed she felt much better, though the anxiety over whether or not she would ever make it home was still pretty crappy. At least she felt she could eat now.

It would help if she knew where the kitchen was.

_Uhm...Charles? s_ he thought, unsure of what else to do.

_I can hear you, Buffy. Actually, we're all here in the kitchen about to begin lunch; we were only waiting for you._

_You didn't have to do that..._

_It's all right; I knew you were awake. Anyhow, I can guide you here. First go down to the end of the hallway and take a left._

When she made it to the kitchen, which was rather big, she found all four of the young men she'd met last night around the island in the middle. Lemonade and the makings for sandwiches were spread out on the island's top.

"Oh. Here you are."

"Yes, here we are. Good morning," Charles answered. "I'm sorry we don't have anything more elaborate prepared as far as food goes..."

"No no; it's fine. Sandwiches are pretty much my staple these days," Buffy shrugged. Since Mom died, anyway. Giles came over and cooked sometimes, but otherwise she and Dawn were on their own in the food department. There were a lot of sandwiches.

"Well now I feel even worse."

"How's your leg?" Hank asked.

"Much better now. They're scabbed over pretty well. I actually kind of—"

"Heal quickly," he finished for her. "Charles told us. It's fascinating."

Buffy looked to Xavier, and he explained. "I hope you don't mind that I've told them what you allowed me to see last night. They were desperately curious, and if we're going to help you they needed to know what we were up against."

"I don't mind at all; saves me the trouble. Sorry to spoil the nasty truth for all of you, though, but...then again I guess you're already part of your own society outside of society so...maybe the idea of another one isn't as big a deal to you as it would be for some people."

"I guess you could put it that way," Alex hedged. "That is, assuming we believe it."

"That part's not really my problem either way."

Sean piped up. "I believe it. It could explain a lot, actually."

"You have no idea what you're talking about, scream boy," Alex said.

"And you do?"

"I didn't think time travel was possible either, but here she is," Hank cut in. "Who's to say the rest of it isn't real?"

"I'm not knocking the time travel, just the other stuff. And I just don't think so, that's all."

"There has to be a basis for your argument..."

Buffy finished making her sandwich, and moved to sit in on the stool nearest Xavier while the other three continued their argument at the other end of the island.

_Are they always like this?_ she asked silently.

_You have no idea_ , he answered, grinning momentarily. "Do the clothes fit all right?" he asked aloud.

"Close enough. Maybe a little long, but that's all. Thanks."

Charles nodded and looked away awkwardly, and suddenly it seemed that the rest of the guys knew what they were talking about. They fell silent too, looking at Buffy and Charles but then quickly looking away again and getting back to eating before slowly continuing their conversation.

Buffy had the sudden horrible feeling and maybe whoever had owned these clothes had died.

Charles straightened quickly. "No! No, of course not," he said quietly. Buffy stared at him and he had the decency to look sheepish. "I'm sorry. I know that was a private thought, but it was rather like a billboard."

"Sorry..."

He shook his head. "No, I uhm...it's all right. _I'm_ sorry. I should have simply told you. The clothes belong to my sister. She...isn't here, at present."

"Oh. Okay."

Charles went back to his lunch, and Buffy got the distinct impression that he did not want to talk about his sister. She wondered what was going on there...but she wondered about it quietly.

"So uhm...I figured I'd get outside as soon as I could; try to track the Kaltar down. I don't think it'll go far, seeing as its entire mission is to kill me."

"I can help with tracking," Hank offered. "I have its scent now."

"You can do that?"

"I'm not as well trained in that department, but—" He motioned to himself. "Look at me."

She shrugged. "Okay. Sure. Thanks. I do need to find it fast, before it can repair its time travel thingy...and as big as this thing is I don't think I can turn down help."

"Can I come?" Sean asked eagerly.

Buffy thought about it, but shook her head. "Thanks, but you and Alex should probably stay here in case it comes back while we're gone." She hesitated and glanced back at Charles apologetically when she remembered that it seemed as if he, for all practical purposes, was their leader. "I mean, if that makes sense to you..."

"It does," he said, though he frowned a little. He didn't seem to be the type who liked to sit around, and she figured the face had something to do with that fact that he realized that half the reason they needed someone to stay at the mansion was because he would need protection if the Kaltar attacked the house. Alone he had only his telepathic ability for protection, which might not help at all against a demon.

But that much frustration over one small incidence? Maybe the wheelchair thing was recent for him.

God, that thought didn't make her feel any better.

What was worse was that Buffy caught Charles wincing, thought he covered it up by taking a bite of his sandwich, and she was pretty sure he'd picked that up.

So she was right. Damnit.

"So! You boys have any weapons around here?"


	3. Chapter 3

Everyone pitched in to search, but according to Buffy the best and only usable weapon in the mansion wasn't even found in the house. It was an axe Alex found in the woodshed outside. There were plenty of guns in the house thanks to Charles's late stepfather, but Buffy had refused to touch them.

"I really, really don't like those things. They make more trouble than they're worth," she said.

Charles had never liked them himself, and now of course...well, his opinion was about the same as hers, but perhaps more vehement.

He had never blamed Moira for what had happened to him, and he couldn't bring himself to place all of the blame for losing the use of his legs on Erik, so what other option was there? It was much more within his nature to hate an object than a person.

So now, they were all in Charles's office, contemplating the axe Alex had brought in while Buffy deliberated on whether or not it was sufficient to go after the creature with. The demon. The...Kaltar demon. Whatever it was. God, this was all so strange.

Buffy hefted it and winced. Charles was relatively certain it was because of how off-balance the thing was. It was old. "It's definitely not made for battle," she said. "It sure is sturdy, though. It'll _have_ to do; I can't let this demon run loose for any longer than I have to. And the time in which I have to is now over."

"Are you sure your leg's healed enough?" Hank asked.

"Enough," she agreed. "I think I'm healing a little faster even than _I_ usually do, actually. Maybe it's the extra boost of energy."

"Beg pardon?" Charles asked. The idea didn't seem completely out of the blue somehow, and he supposed he must have skimmed over whatever she was talking about when she'd allowed him into her mind the night before. However, he didn't remember the details.

Just then something small and bright dashed across the floor and up Buffy's leg. Buffy didn't scream, but Hank, Alex, and Sean shouted.

"Whoa!"

"What the hell—!"

"Hey!"

Buffy did jump, and twisted her head to look at her left shoulder, where what looked like a strangely-shaped metallic insect came to rest.

"What on earth...?" Charles began.

"Bug!" Buffy was saying, setting down the axe. "You're okay."

_"Of course. Not needed after battle and beginning of healing process. Merely went into temporary dormant state."_

"You could have warned me. I was worried. Why I was worried about a machine bug, I'll never know, but I guess you're just kind of cute."

It didn't seem to know what to say to that. It shifted its position on her shoulder, and after another moment of hesitation it skittered down her arm, prompting her to hold that hand up flat so it had somewhere convenient to stop. _"Commencing search for Kaltar demon?"_

"That's the plan. And for future reference, your name is Bug."

_"Serial number is 348345—"_

She cut it off. "Your name is Bug."

It stopped, and paused for a moment. _"Very well."_

Charles finally managed to say something else. "Uhm...Buffy, what...?"

She blinked and looked at him, as if just now remembering that he and the others were there. "Sorry. This is Bug. He's uhm...well, he's the little robot bug from the future who warned me and my friends about the demon before it attacked, actually. I know that sounds crazy."

Now he remembered seeing something about it, in her mind. "No, I uhm...I remember, a bit. I saw it."

"In my head?"

"Yes."

"You didn't tell _us_ that part," Sean complained.

"I didn't exactly remember then," Charles answered defensively. "It wasn't a detail I had any particular reason to focus on."

"Excuse, excuses," Alex smirked.

Hank was edging closer to Buffy, peering in fascination at the thing perched on her hand. "So it's a machine? From just how far in the future are we talking about?"

_"2892,"_ Bug answered. _"Also, not entirely machine—blend of robotics and magic."_

"Magic?" Hank questioned.

Buffy shrugged. "It comes with the whole demon/vampire/vampire slayer territory."

"Huh..." Curiously, he held out his own blue hand to the little robot. "May I...?" Buffy didn't object, and Bug jumped onto his hand. Hank grinned.

Charles drew his chair closer, also curious. "How is a blend of mechanics and magic even possible? Assuming I accept the existence of magic. I am still having a bit of trouble with all of this."

"It's okay. I don't think anybody gets over it right away. And the machine with magic thing is still new on me, too. But I do think the energy boost he gave me helped jump-start my healing."

_"That it correct."_

Buffy held out her hand beside Hank's, and Bug returned to her. She brought the little robot up and closer to her face. "What else can you do? Before we go up against this Kaltar it'd be nice to know how much you can help. Any weapons, or are you just the messenger?"

_"Small basic cutting lasers, holographic projectors, and anti-gravity capability. No weapons."_

"Wait, you can _fly_?" A small whine emanated from the little robot, and it levitated above Buffy's hand for a moment before landing again. "Nice..."

"Good lord," Charles commented.

"Tell me about it. Wait, what about other magic? Is energy all you can give me, or can you do spells yourself?"

_"Programmed to aid Slayer and adapt to situations. Can perform some magical tasks."_

"What about a locator spell? It'd save us the looking for this thing."

_"Negative. Time shift would interfere with results."_

Buffy frowned. "But...Willow could do it accurately if she were here, couldn't she?"

_"Affirmative."_

"Then why can't you?" She paused. "Does it have something to do with the fact that you're part machine and not a real witch?"

Charles was completely lost. Even after seeing the basics of Buffy's life in her mind, the idea of magic, of all of it...it was still overwhelming.

_"Affirmative. Some spells adversely affected by this, and by time shift."_

"Great..." Buffy looked back to to Hank now. "I guess we're still on our own with the tracking thing." She glanced back at the robot once more. "You, though, are still coming with."

_"Of course. Can provide energy support."_ With that Bug crawled back up her arm, jumped onto her jacket, and then into her pocket. It was the same jacket she'd arrived in, though she was wearing Raven's clothes under it.

Charles wished she had come back just once—to get her things, to make sure he was all right, to give them a chance at a better goodbye...but she hadn't. He chose to believe it was only to make the sudden separation easier to bear.

Buffy was picking up the axe again, and Hank look ready to go too. "We'd better get going, then. I guess we start where he went into the woods. As big as he is it shouldn't be too hard to find him. I hope."

"You're probably right, and I should be able to smell him long before we—"

"Wait," Charles said suddenly. Even he wasn't sure why, until he admitted to himself that he wanted to do something more useful. He knew of at least one way that he could, though he wasn't fond of the idea. "Before you leave, I want to try something."

They all looked at him.

"This thing's mind...it's so different, I should be able to find it from a greater distance than others. Of course, it may also turn out that I actually have a shorter range for it, but I won't know until I try to locate it. I want to try."

Buffy was already shaking her head. "Charles, I don't think you really understand the _demon_ concept. That thing's mind is evil. It would be too dangerous for you to—"

"I don't plan to go entirely _in_ to its mind, Buffy. I only mean to locate it. I'll just need to touch it, barely. If I don't even do that I may still be able to get a general direction. That much should not be dangerous."

"And what if it is?" Hank asked.

"Going out there after it is dangerous for the two of you; should I tell you that you can't do it?"

Buffy hesitated, but then she let out a breath and conceded. "Okay. But be careful."

"But—" Hank protested.

Alex shrugged. "You heard him. Let the man try."

"It'd give you a better starting point," Sean said uncertainly.

"Precisely," Charles nodded, more firmly.

"Like I said, just be careful," Buffy repeated.

Hank nodded in agreement, though he still didn't look happy. For the record, Buffy did not look thrilled, but Charles knew she understood that anything he might gain from trying could definitely be used. He nodded back at them both, and brought his fingers to his temple to focus.

He felt the pull of something strange and out of place immediately. It took some time, but he determined a direction. He should have stopped there—it was a direction; it was something—but as much as he was wary of that mind, he wanted to do something to help more than that. He wanted something better. So Charles drew closer, and he felt resistance immediately, as if the demon knew he was trying to find it. As strange and different as the thing's mind was, it was also very strong, and more aware to tampering than a regular human mind was—more aware than many mutants, even.

He fought closer, and he felt the strain. He was relatively certain he was making a face. The demon had more mental prowess than the average non-telepath, yes, but it was still technically not a telepath. He could do this. More than likely it was only the difference in construct causing most of the problem now. If he could only get closer, read into it more, learn how this new sort of mind operated...

Much of him still didn't want to—was almost afraid of the thing, as awful as it felt even from a distance—but it was the only way he could help. He had to. He was nearly there. For now if he could only skim the surface and pull out immediately, at least, he could learn more precisely where the beast was. Another moment and—

Charles shouted. He jerked against the back of his chair, both hands moving automatically to clasp his head as a sharp jolt of pain suddenly stabbed through it. He hadn't felt anything like it since the day he'd managed to control Sebastian Shaw. It had hurt, for just a moment, when he'd first taken control, because Shaw was so strong. He'd cried out; Moira had asked him if he was all right...

This was much like that, but still different, and on top of that much worse.

"Charles!"

"What's wrong?"

"Get out of there!"

Thankfully, this also only lasted a moment. But he lost contact.

"I-I...I am out," he managed after a moment.

"Are you okay?" Hank demanded worriedly.

"Charles?" Buffy was asking. Sean and Alex were echoing her.

"I _am_ all right, really. It was just..." He scowled. "I'm not sure, actually. I think it sensed me coming close and...well, I think it may have _attacked_ me."

"It can do that?" Buffy questioned.

"Or its mind is so alien that attempting to actually touch it had such an adverse effect."

"I _told_ you—"

Hank snorted. "Adverse effect? That looked like a little more than an adverse effect. Are you _sure_ you're all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine, Hank, thank you." He let out a breath and paused for a moment, collecting his thoughts. He'd been so close; he just hadn't been prepared. If he went in more stealthily, more carefully, perhaps he could get what he needed unnoticed. "All I have is a general direction. Now, I was almost there. If I tried again—"

"I don't think so."

"It is not up to you, Hank," Charles shot back sharply. Could he do _nothing_ anymore?

Buffy cut in. "Charles, a direction is plenty," she said quickly. "It's more than we had a few minutes ago. We can start where he disappeared and head that way; it'll save us a lot of ducking and weaving trying to follow his path. Thank you."

She meant it, and when Charles broke off from glaring at Hank to look her in the eyes he saw it as well as sensed it. She was thankful, and she didn't want him getting into a fight with his friends over anything related to helping her. He knew there was more to what she trying to do in diffusing the argument, but that part was harder to face.

It was hard to admit to himself that a young women he'd only met last night could already read him so easily, _without_ any telepathic ability. She seemed to already know how he felt—how much he hated being less useful than he used to be.

True, being in a wheelchair didn't change the strength of his mutant abilities, but...it did affect the versatility in some ways. Now he could only try to locate the creature from here; if he could walk he would simply have gone with them, tracked it in the field. Maybe he wasn't much of a fighter himself, but he would have been able to follow it, and lead Buffy and Hank straight to it. For that matter, if he could walk they would all have gone. There would be no need for Sean and Alex to stay here to protect him. It felt awful.

Of course Buffy didn't know all of that, specifically, but he knew that somehow she understood that he was frustrated. She was trying to make him feel better.

Charles swallowed, and nodded a bit in acknowledgment. "It's gone north," he told her.

"Thanks," she said again, and she smiled at him. She didn't move to go until he'd smiled back. It was weak, but it was there. That was something. He felt her hand on his shoulder briefly, before she was gone.

Hank looked back at him guiltily, but Charles waved him on. "Go. I'll stay with you as far as I can." Hank nodded, and he followed Buffy.

"Charles?" Sean asked, once they were gone.

"You good, man?" Alex added.

"Fine," he answered shortly, and sighed. He moved around his desk to the windows, and watched Buffy and Hank make their way down the hill out back. "I'll uhm...I'll need to concentrate to stay with them once they're out of sight, so if you don't mind..."

They got the message, and they left.

* * *

"Are you sure you don't want a weapon? Something?" Buffy asked as they reached the woods.

Hank shrugged. "I don't really need them anymore," he said, glancing down at his claws.

"I know; it's just this thing is pretty big, and its skin is kinda tough. The last thing I want is for any of you to get hurt because of me."

"I'll be fine."

They reached the spot where the Kaltar had vanished, and there was a relatively clear path. Buffy glanced up at the sun, but it was too close to the middle of the day to really determine which way north was. The sun was directly overhead. "Okay, and north from here is...?" Hank pointed in the direction the path was headed, and Buffy nodded. "Okay then."

The path did deviate from north at times, but they kept on in the same direction and the trail of broken branches and crushed shrubbery always reappeared. Knowing it would did indeed save some time. Which brought Buffy back to Charles, and wondering what had happened there.

"On the way out I heard Charles say he'd stay with us as long as he could. What does that mean, exactly?"

"He's keeping tabs on our location through one of us—probably me."

"But that's it?"

Hank looked at her strangely. "Yeah, I guess."

"Then can I ask you something? And he won't know I talked to you about it?"

"As far as I know...why?"

Buffy shrugged as they walked. "If you don't mind my asking...I was wondering how long he'd been like that."

Hank snorted. "What, stubborn? I think he was born that way."

"That's not what I mean."

"I didn't think so..."

"It hasn't been long, has it?"

Hank shook his head. "It's only been a few months. If he's been upset or had trouble adjusting he hasn't really talked to us about it. I know it can't be easy for him, but he's just like that, I guess. It's hard for me to say; none of us knew him for more than a few weeks before it happened."

Buffy made a face. "God, that's awful." Her hunch had been right. She knew he couldn't have been paralyzed for long, because she knew that look—the one that said he wasn't able to do as much as he otherwise could have, and he hated it. He was nowhere near used to the idea. She'd seen that look many times last year, on Giles's face, when she'd started college and stopped going to him for training. She knew now that he'd felt useless and unneeded, and it hadn't been easy for him. She was more than glad that that was all sorted out now.

"What happened?" she asked.

"The short story is that he ended up with a bullet in his back. The long story...is a long story, and I'll let Charles tell you himself if he wants to you to know any of it.

"Fair enough."

Hank only shrugged, and they continued in silence. Buffy wasn't sure how long they walked, following the trail, but eventually it came out of the woods and they lost it.

"Crap...have to looks for footprints..."

"Don't need to. I can smell it, remember? Straight ahead." Hank took the lead, but he stopped shortly after when they reached a stretch of train tracks cutting through the countryside. "Damnit."

"What?"

He stepped over the tracks and sniffed, and let out a frustrated grunt. "Scent's gone. He must have hopped a train."

"Did you _see_ that thing? Do you really think it could have done that?"

"It wasn't _that_ slow; it could have easily hopped a freight train, and it probably would have fit in a mostly empty boxcar."

"Damnit..." Buffy echoed.

"What happened to it-won't-go-far?"

"I didn't think it would! It's supposed to kill me; I thought it would stay close and strike whenever it had a chance. Warrior-types like that are usually pretty low-intelligence and single-minded. Apparently this is one of the smarter ones, and it deserves a whole lot more credit than I gave it. It's getting away—giving itself time to make a better plan than crash-in-and-crush-the-life-out-of-everybody. Though to your credit, I bet the powers you guys have is at least part of the reason it decided to play it this way." She scowled. "Or it could be the only reason. God knows I wasn't much of a challenge for it the first go-round."

Buffy huffed in anger and spun to head back the way they had come, muttering to herself. "I really do not need this right now. It should be find the demon, kill it, and go home. Not that I know _how_ I'm getting home...how _am_ I getting home?"

At that Bug crawled out of her pocket and skittered up to her shoulder. _"Have sufficient energy and technology to create one time portal. Possibility of your being transported with the Kaltar during battle prepared for."_ "You know, you could have told me that before."

_"You did not ask before."_

Well that was a load off her mind...but she still had to take care of this demon first, before it screwed with the timeline. If it hadn't already. Since she was trapped here with it, she hoped she'd know if it did.

After a few more minutes Hank caught up to her, seeing as she'd stormed off. Buffy had a feeling he could more than easily have kept up with her from the beginning, but that he'd been giving her space.

"Charles knows we're headed back," he commented after another moment or so.

Buffy glanced back in the direction of where they'd lost the Kaltar's trail, but kept walking. "Is there a way we can find out where those tracks go?"

"I'm sure it wouldn't be hard, but Charles is the one who grew up here. He's already working on it, actually. He said he should have maps there at home."

"Good...maybe a map'll give us more of an idea of where he may have gotten off besides checking every station for signs of carnage."

Hank winced. "That thing is pretty damn sturdy; it could probably just jump off anywhere. Checking stations wouldn't be enough."

This was going to be a pain in the ass, wasn't it? And as nice as these new friends were, all Buffy wanted was to be home—to make sure Giles was all right and the timeline was as it should be. She just wanted to be there to protect her sister like she was supposed to. She wanted Glory gone and she wanted her mother back.

But no. Instead she was here, in 1963, hunting a demon that wanted to kill her, and she couldn't go anywhere until it was dead. If she did there might not be anything to go back to.

* * *

When Hank and Buffy returned it was nearly dark, and Charles had several maps spread out over his desk, studying them carefully though he didn't know exactly what he was looking for. Some of them had the tracks on them and some didn't, and he was going back and forth between them all, trying to make sense of what the creature might be thinking and where it might be going.

"What have you got?" Buffy asked when she came back in.

Charles shook his head. "These maps cover the state and I have one or two that cover the surrounding states, but none of the maps of the entire country that I have include the railroads. I should think we'd hope it won't go that far, but..." He looked up at her. "Where would it go? It may want to be farther away for now, to lay low for a bit, but you don't think it's running away, do you?"

"Definitely not," Buffy confirmed. "It's not the type. Demons in general usually aren't the type. They're rather butt-headed."

"I see. And uhm...your plan is really to kill it outright?" he questioned. He would have asked earlier, under normal circumstance, but he'd been a bit upset before she and Hank had left.

"I don't have a choice."

"You're sure? I know I know almost nothing about any of this...but there have been so many you've...and I just wonder if it's the only option. Are they really nothing more than creatures? This one is clearly intelligent. And it _can_ speak. I saw that much for myself when it spoke to you on the lawn before it disappeared last night." He paused. "I'm sorry to spring this on you now. I meant to say something earlier, but earlier I was..."

"I know," she said gently.

Buffy found the chair nearest the desk and perched on the arm, seeming to gather her thoughts before she spoke. "Maybe it can speak, and...it _is_ more than a beast, maybe it's even a someone, sort of...but it's not a person. It was never human. It's a thing from another dimension entirely, and it means no one any good. It's _evil_. Granted, there are demons who live on earth in my decade who are peaceful, but usually it's because they've interbred with humans, or their species spent a long time a long time ago changing and evolving and deciding not to kill and enslave humans anymore. They didn't become that way all at once. Others just find it easier to coexist if they're not snatching us off the streets. But if a demon isn't clearly peaceful, or at the very least indifferent, then it's a safe bet it's evil. You can't trap evil, or try to reform it...you have to get rid of it. I will never kill a human being—my job is to protect humans; even the stupid ones—but I will never hesitate to kill a demon if I know it's a danger to anyone."

She shrugged. "It's like...if you were attacked by a bear, or a shark, or a wolf. Sure, they deserve to live too, but if it's you or it you're gonna choose yourself, and there's nothing wrong with that."

Charles frowned. "Bears and sharks and wolves are animals. These...demons, as you call them, are sentient beings."

"Actually, there are species that aren't. Some of them really are just big dumb animals. Not all of them are self-aware. The ones that are...well the animal analogy is the simple version. The more complicated version is that, like I said...they're _evil_. Okay, so that's actually simple too, the good and evil thing...but it's not so simple to people who don't necessarily believe in it." She let out a breath. "The thing is, if I don't kill demons—if I don't stop the ones that _are_ evil for good—then they'll take over. They'll make the Earth a living hell, and I can't let that happen. That's why there _is_ a Slayer. It _is_ us or them."

Charles studied her for a moment, taking his time to absorb all of that. He knew she was completely serious, and the enormity of it all—of her world—was hitting him anew.

"There will be trouble if we don't find this creature, won't there?"

She nodded curtly. "Big trouble. It may be here and now, or it may only show itself in how screwed-up the timeline gets in the future, or it could be both. But there will most definitely be trouble if we don't stop this thing. For good."

"Then...we have no choice?"

"None. Or I don't. You don't have to help me; it's my calling, not yours."

Charles was quiet for a moment, looking at her. "Of course we'll help," he said finally. "I know I will, anyhow. However, I think the others will still feel the same."

"Thank you." Buffy smiled. "You know, there probably aren't that many people who would be handling this as well as you are."

"What? Having a girl from forty years in the future drop into their backyard and tell them that demons and vampires and magic are real—along with a real demon to prove it? Oh, I'm sure anyone would find it incredibly simple."

They both laughed, and Charles glanced back down at the maps. "Anyhow...what sort of place _do_ you think it might go?"

Buffy shook her head helplessly as she stood to come around and look at the maps herself. "I really, really don't know. This is the first of its kind I've seen, and I don't know how it thinks. I wouldn't know where to even begin. It might want to find more woods farther away to get lost in, or somewhere rocky it might find a cave, or it might just be pissed off and decide to get off in the first bigger city it comes across and cause some random damage."

"Is that last idea enough of a possibility to be worried about it?" Charles asked anxiously. Because that would _not_ be good at all. The general public might not know much of mutants yet, but the governments of the world certainly did. If the demon attacked a city, there would be more than enough of those who would mistake it for a mutant as he had at first. That would not help the mutant cause in the future.

Buffy thought for a moment. "I don't think so. Probably it just wants to fix its time-travel device if it can so it can escape when it's done, and figure how to get around you guys. Unfortunately I've probably given it the impression that I won't be all that hard to kill, myself, but Alex's...energy beam, or whatever, hurt it. It wasn't too fond of whatever the hell Sean does, either."

"Are you very good at science?"

"Not at all."

"Ah. Then it would be very difficult to explain exactly what Sean can do."

"It's okay. I know it's pretty damn useful; that's enough for me."

Useful. Charles gave a weak chuckle, and she turned to him quickly. He looked away, hoping she'd overlook it—he hadn't meant for it to sound that way at all—but she didn't.

"Hank told me that what happened to you was relatively recent," she said after a moment.

"You already thought so."

"So you picked up on that then."

"I did," he admitted.

Buffy nodded. "I kinda figured you had." She went to grab the chair from the other side of the desk, and sat in it after pulling it to the corner where she'd been standing. "What happened?"

He opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

She raised an eyebrow. "Hey, I let you rummage around in _my_ head.

"That is true..." He paused, going back over what he remembered. "Did I tell you that I'm sorry about your mother?"

Buffy's face fell. "That's not fair. You changed the subject."

"No, no, I...I really did just want to tell you that I'm sorry. It simply hadn't been the right moment before." He winced in apology. "I'm sorry; I only picked that up because it was so much in the forefront of your mind when I was in it."

She shook her head and shrugged, but she'd looked down and wouldn't look up again yet. "It's okay; I kind of figured you'd pick up on that too. At some point at least. It's kind of the biggest thing going on right now. Besides Glory."

"Glory. Is that the larger threat you face, back in your own time? I didn't get many details on it; I was more interested in the general picture."

"Yeah. That's Glory all right. It would take another eternity to explain that one. Even I'm not sure I really understand everything going on there, so you wouldn't either if you went in for the rest of it. I just know we have to get rid of her, and we don't know how."

He really didn't know what to say to that, especially since there was nothing he could do—even if he could walk. "I'm sorry."

Buffy waved it off. "Right now all I can afford to worry about is this demon. Focus on one problem at a time to keep myself sane."

"I suppose I can understand that. It's not always something we have the luxury of doing."

She looked up finally, and smiled a bit. "I guess this being-out-of-time thing has its advantages." She sat back then, looking at him patiently, and was silent.

Charles studied her. He didn't have to wonder why she wanted to know. It wasn't morbid curiosity or a convoluted desire to know everything. It was nothing like that. Buffy Summers was simply a kind-hearted young woman who only wanted to help him, because that was what she did. She helped people. She wasn't the hero who was always in shadow, impersonal and only doing what needed to be done out of duty. No, she cared. She cared quite a lot.

But he also knew that he wasn't ready to tell her everything. He didn't know everything about her yet, either. He didn't know exactly who this Glory character was, or why she worried Buffy so much. There was much he didn't know. But he did know some things. Perhaps she was right; she should know a few things too.

"How much did Hank tell you?" he asked.

"Just that you were shot, and that it was only a few months ago."

He nodded. "It was a bullet, but I wasn't shot intentionally. I was...caught in the crossfire, I suppose you would say." He saw her open her mouth to question how he'd ended up in any sort of battle in the first place, and he simplified it as best he could. "There was a group of mutants attempting to use their powers to bring disaster to human kind, rather than aid. My friends and I had no choice but to stop them. They would have started a nuclear war."

"Oh my god." Buffy paused. "I'm sorry..."

He shrugged weakly. "I suppose I'm thankful that at least it happened doing something I believed in, rather than in some ridiculous accident." He tried to smile at that last part, but he was sure it came out looking pained. He was even more sure when Buffy reached out and took one of his hands.

"I'm glad you have that," she told him, squeezing a bit.

This time Charles was able to give her a smile of thanks that was more genuine. "Thank you. Perhaps I'll explain the rest at some point."

"Maybe I'll let you see the rest of this crap about Glory sometime before I go back, if you want to see it."

Buffy released his hand, and he turned back to the maps. "We'll see."

If nothing else, Charles was sure he'd be able to say he'd gained a friend from this adventure.

* * *

After pouring over the maps for a while longer, Buffy and Charles pinpointed a few spots along the tracks' route that might be ideal hiding places for a demon of the Kaltar's size. At some point Bug emerged from Buffy's pocket and crawled across the map too, helping. The little robot knew more about the behavioral tendencies of Kaltars than either Slayer or mutant did.

_"Attack only when victory is certain. Angered if victory is not achieved, but patient in creating circumstances perfect for victory at a later time. Clever despite size and appearance. Does not rest until victory is achieved."_

"It hardly seems that there could be a worse combination," Charles commented quietly. He'd shaken his head. "If only I could do more."

It had been decided that tomorrow they would all take a car and check the places that Buffy, Charles, and Bug had marked. The points on the map crossed the state and went into the next, following the tracks. They had cut off the examination of the maps at 250 miles down the line, because they had to stop somewhere.

Still, the trip would take two or three days with the stops to thoroughly check the appointed areas. That was why they were all going. Hank wasn't thrilled about Charles coming—especially since Charles had apparently been beating around the bush about acquiring a vehicle that could accommodate his chair. While they were gone he would have to use a regular folding wheelchair that could be carried in the trunk.

Now though, Buffy had been instructed to get some sleep. The compromise had been that if she was going to sleep, Charles had to do his best to get some as well.

When she returned to her room from showering, though, ready for bed, she found Bug awake and pacing the nightstand.

"Bug? What's up?" She sat down on the edge of the bed. "You look like something's up."

Bug stopped skittering so much, and stopped to look at her. _"Charles Xavier is...damaged."_

Buffy frowned, unhappy with the little robot's wording. "His legs are paralyzed. He can't walk. Why?"

_"This is easily fixed in century of origin."_

"That's nice, but we're not _in_ your century of origin, and you said you can only make a time portal once, right?"

_"Correct. Once after arrival in 2001 to warn you."_

"Then what are you going on about?"

_"Charles Xavier could be of more use in finding Kaltar demon if not damaged."_

"Hey, stop saying it like that. He's not damaged goods. He's a person who does everything he can. What he can do is just a little different now. There's nothing wrong with that."

_"Please refrain from argument. Only stating fact."_

And why was she arguing with a machine in the first place? It didn't know what it was saying; Bug wasn't _trying_ to sound awful. She shook her head. "Whatever. Do you have a point?"

_"Only stating fact, yes?"_

Buffy rolled her eyes. "Sure. Fine. Yeah, I guess he could do a little more to help us if he could walk, but that's not going to change and he's doing the best he can. I'm glad he and his friends are the ones who found us." She laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment, talking more to herself now. "I think what he wants is for people to treat him normally again—not pity him or worry about him."

She pretty much got it, because that was how she felt now, wanting things to go back to normal as much as they could. Having Giles and everyone else walking on eggshells around her and Dawn actually didn't help, and it had finally been starting to wear off before this fiasco began.

"I think Alex and Sean mostly understand, but Hank just isn't getting it..." she was saying.

Buffy looked up again, and Bug had already shut down for the night. She rolled her eyes again and got up to turn off the light.

"You are the _weirdest_ little robot..."

Surprise of surprises, she dreamed about her mother that night, and it moved into a nightmare about not just her mother, but Giles. Both of them being gone instead of just Joyce. And then she failed to stop the Kaltar, and she and her friends followed, and with no one left to protect her Glory found Dawn—

Buffy woke up shivering, and reached to turn on the lamp on the nightstand. When she did she realized that something was wrong, and it took her a moment to wake up enough to realize that Bug was missing.

She blinked to clear her eyes. "Bug? Are you in here?" There was no sound of skittering metal legs, no digitized voice. "Bug?" she called.

Nothing.

Then Buffy heard a shout from down the corridor, and she had other things to worry about.


	4. Chapter 4

Buffy jumped out of bed immediately, and her first thought was that the Kaltar had made its way back in the night. With no time to worry that she was in nothing but her own tank top and a pair of borrowed shorts, she bolted from the room, snatching up the axe that she'd left leaning against a chair by the door. She went right in the corridor, relatively sure that was the general direction the shout had come from, but she didn't have to be uncertain for long. She heard another shout, and now that she was listening for it she could tell that it was a cry of pain—not of fear or panic or surprise.

And she was pretty confident that it was Charles.

The second sound led her to what she assumed would be another bedroom, and when she burst inside she discovered that she was right. It was dark, but she could make out the shapes of a bed and dresser, other furniture...but no sign of a large demon ransacking the place. The only signs of life were movement from the bed, and a soft moan.

"Charles?"

"Buffy?" He still sounded like he was in pain.

"I'm here. What's wrong? I heard—"

"I know. I'm sorry, I...I don't know." She heard him swallow noisily. "Would you mind getting the light? Its there by the door."

Buffy glanced back at the wall beside her and felt around near the door until she found the switch. She set the axe down against the wall and flipped on the light.

Charles was flat on his back in the bed, the pillows off to one side, and the covers were pushed down as much as she supposed he could push them away without sitting up, since it didn't seem he had yet. He wasn't moving much. When she turned on the light he twisted his head to find her, and that was the only movement he made.

"Thank you..."

"No problem..." She went closer, frowning in confusion. "What's going on?"

It looked like he tried to move, but stopped abruptly, squeezing his eyes shut briefly and clenching his jaw for a moment. "I don't know," he repeated finally, and now he was starting to breathe more heavily. It looked a whole lot like panic. "Something woke me up—I was trying to move in my sleep, I think, maybe turn over; I must have been on my stomach at the time—but it hurt. Quite a lot, actually, and it shouldn't. I-I don't understand...and I still can't. I can't move. If I—"

He tried again, his head coming up and his arms moving as if to try to sit up, but he shouted and fell back again.

"Whoa! God, okay; don't do that then. Just stay still. I'll...I'll get Hank. Where's his room?"

"He's coming..."

"Okay, good. Good. Is there something I can do?"

Charles shook his head a bit, obviously being very careful not to move anything else, and that was when Hank hurried in.

"What is it?" he asked anxiously. "I heard that from upstairs; I was up before you asked me to come down here." Behind him Sean and Alex ran into each other outside the door and bumped into the wall before getting caught trying to come through the doorway at the same time. Apparently they had heard Charles's shouting, too. Alex shoved Sean in first to clear the congestion, and Sean slammed into Hank's back while Alex stepped easily in.

All of them looked worried, and Buffy didn't blame them. The shouting she'd heard had sounded awful. _She_ was worried.

Hank and the other two came up to the side of the bed as well, and Charles told them what he'd told Buffy. He was trying to sound a bit more calm this time but it probably wasn't working as well as he wanted it to.

"It's your back that hurts? Where the wound was?" Hank asked.

Charles nodded quickly. "It makes no sense! It hasn't hurt like this since the day it _happened_."

"Is it really that bad?"

"Not exactly, but close enough that I _know_ this should not be happening. Something is very, very wrong..." He was getting dangerously close to that whole panic thing.

"Are you sure you didn't...do something, yesterday? Something to overexert yourself or aggravate it, maybe?"

Without moving anything else Charles threw out an arm accusingly toward the wheelchair by the far side of the bed. "I sit in a damned _chair_ all day, Hank! What could I possibly have done!"

"I don't know, Charles! I'm a scientist, not a doctor, remember? This isn't my area of expertise; I don't _know_ what could be wrong. Nothing that I know of that _could_ be happening would be causing you this much pain. It doesn't make any sense to me either. The only thing I know to do is call an ambulance."

That shut Charles up, finally, just for a moment. "If we're going to have to go to a hospital, could we at least drive their on our own?"

Hank hesitated. "I don't think that's a good idea. Without knowing what's going on, I don't want to risk moving you ourselves."

"Why not?" Charles asked tiredly. "It isn't going hurt anything; I've already lost my legs entirely, after all."

Buffy winced to herself, wishing she had something useful to contribute that might save some of the arguing. When she made the face her head dropped for a moment, and that was when she noticed something dashing across the floor. She looked up quickly, and saw Bug scurrying up the side of the bed and coming to rest beside Charles.

_"Possible to turn Charles Xavier over? Can help if done."_

"What?" Hank said in confusion. "No, I already said I don't think it's a good idea to move him."

_"Safe if careful."_

"How do _you_ know—?"

"He's from almost 900 years in the future," Buffy cut in. "Can't you give him a little credit?"

"Charles?" Hank asked.

Charles looked from Hank, to Bug, to Buffy, and back. "I see no reason not to let him try," he said wearily. "I don't see that I have much to lose."

"Don't say like it like that," Buffy protested. "Just...let Bug try. Maybe he can even tell us what's wrong." Charles just nodded, but then, of course, Hank and Sean and Alex had to spend the next five minutes debating the best way in which to get him turned over without hurting him too much.

"Oh for god's sakes just _do_ it! If I pass out I bloody pass out," Charles cried eventually.

The boys looked at each other momentarily, and finally decided that all they could do was support him as much as they could and keep as much of the stress as possible off of his back. Buffy and Sean went around to the other side of the bed to help from there, and Alex and Hank stayed where they were. Sean pulled the covers down the rest of the way and off of Charles legs completely, and Buffy took one of his hands before they began.

It didn't go too badly. Charles cried out more than once, but he was still conscious once they had him on his stomach. He was clenching Buffy's hand rather tightly, though, before he abruptly let go.

They let him rest for a minute or two, and then Bug crawled up onto his back. The little robot pushed Charles's shirt up and went in a circle for a moment around the scar, maybe looking for the right spot. Buffy wasn't sure.

"What is he doing?" Charles asked after a moment.

"I really don't know," Buffy admitted. "Bug only dropped into my life about five minutes before we dropped into yours, remember?"

Bug stopped moving around and settled in one place, and in another moment a soft glow came from the little robot's underside. Charles winced, but made no sound, and after a minute or two the tension in his face eased. Another few seconds, and the glow coming from Bug had stopped.

_"Better?"_

Charles slowly pushed himself up on his elbows, and he seemed to do it without any trouble. Bug hopped off of him, and he reached back to feel the area where the robot had been. That movement didn't seem to hurt him, either. Now he was nodding.

"Yes, much better. Thank you," he said.

Hank looked at Bug. "But did you fix the problem, or just keep it from hurting?"

 _"Problem eliminated,"_ Bug said.

"What was wrong?"

_"Unknown."_

"Then how do you—"

"Hank, it doesn't matter," Charles cut in. "I am _fine_." He let his elbows slide out from under him until he was flat on the bed again. "I still can't walk, of course, but I am otherwise fine," he muttered.

There was silence for a moment, until Charles spoke up again. "I'm fine," he repeated. "Thank you for your concern, all of you, but perhaps we ought to get back to sleep. We have a long couple of days ahead of us."

After protesting a bit Hank reluctantly left, and Alex and Sean followed. Buffy was the last to leave. "You're sure you're okay?" she asked on the way out.

"A little the worse for wear, but all right," he assured her. "Thanks to Bug there's no reason to delay leaving in the morning, and I suppose that's a good thing."

"Sure. As long as you really are okay."

Charles pushed up on an elbow again to see her more clearly, and nodded. "I am," he said, much more convincingly this time. "Please don't worry."

Buffy let out a breath. "Okay...good night."

"Good night." She held out a hand. "Come on, Bug." When the robot skittered across the floor and climbed up into her hand she turned off the light. She brought the axe with her on her way back to her room. Once there she leaned it back up against the chair and crawled into bed, still troubled about what the hell had just happened there.

Bug jumped to the nightstand and she looked at him. "Okay, spill it. Where were you?" The little robot looked at her innocently, and tilted to one side as if cocking its head and saying _who, me?_ "You know what I'm talking about; when I woke up you weren't in here. Where were you?"

 _"Attempted repair to Charles Xavier,"_ Bug said matter-of-factly.

Buffy just stared. "You did _what_?"

_"Attempted repair failed. Insufficient medical archives and tools. Charles Xavier woke in process of returning everything to as it was before attempt."_

"Whoa whoa, wait. Are you kidding me? All of that was _your_ fault?" It also occurred to her that when Hank had asked what the problem had been, Bug had said unknown. Apparently he was capable of lying; at least if it was needed. That was definitely worth knowing.

Bug ducked forward, as if in shame. _"Affirmative."_ He bobbed up again. _"However, purely magical solution may be possible—"_

"That was _your_ fault?" Buffy repeated. "You scared the hell out of him! The rest of us, too. You can't just go around doing things like that. At the very least not without telling anyone!"

 _"Have alerted you. Now can make second attempt."_ Bug started to scamper off, but she grabbed at him and caught one of the little metal legs.

"Whoa! Hey! It's a nice thought, but that's not a good idea."

Bug didn't resist as he hung from her fingers, but she could have sworn that the tone of his mechanized voice sounded annoyed. _"Reason?"_

"Did you not catch the part where that scared the hell out of everybody? You screwed up once; what if you still can't do it? What if he wakes up in the middle this time too? You can't do that to him again."

" _Magical patch much more likely to succeed."_

"How much more likely?"

Bug didn't answer.

"Uh huh. I thought so. You've never done anything like this before, have you?"

_"Negative. Unneeded in home century."_

Well she couldn't blame him for that, and...as much as she didn't want to upset Charles again...what if Bug could do it?

"Do you really think it'll work? What exactly do you mean by patch?"

_"Difficult to explain."_

Buffy sighed. "Yeah, I get that a lot." She thought long and hard, and finally decided that the possible gains were worth the possible risks. She let Bug down. "Okay, look...if you're going back in there, don't let him wake up this time. And if you can't do it, make sure you don't leave anything out of whack again; we don't need a repeat of what happened just now. And Charles can't ever know about this if it doesn't work. It'd only depress him more."

_"Agreed."_

Then Bug was gone, and Buffy laid back down. However, now she knew that she would never get anymore sleep tonight.

What if it worked? What if it didn't?

* * *

Charles woke to something small and cold brushing against his face, and he jerked back in surprise. When he opened his eyes, though, it was only Bug, crawling back and forth in front of him on the edge of the bed.

_"Charles Xavier?"_

"Bug? What are you doing in here?" he asked groggily. "If you're checking on me, there's no need. I'm all right."

_"Yes. Magical patch successful. You are tentatively repaired. Uncertain as to life of solution."_

Charles frowned in confusion and started to pull himself up against the headboard. "What?"

Bug, producing a grabbing claw on the end of one of his front legs, quickly snatched the edge of the bedcovers and dragged them down and off of Charles. _"Repaired,"_ Bug repeated, crawling up onto one of his legs and skittering up and down it before jumping to the next one and doing the same.

Charles jerked. "Stop it! That...that..." He trailed off when he realized what he was saying. "That tickles..."

Bug hopped onto one of his bare feet, and Charles reached to brush the little robot off—not unkindly—before grabbing the foot himself.

He let out a breath of shock when he felt it. And he realized that to reach it his knee had bent and come up, and he hadn't even thought about it. He grabbed the other one, and the same thing happened. His knee came up, bringing his foot closer, and when he touched it he felt it. He felt that his feet were cold, and his hands were warm against them. He ran his hands up and down his legs, and he could feel all of it.

"Oh my god," he choked. This couldn't be happening. He had to be dreaming. Charles looked at the little machine that was sitting calmly on the bed beside him. "You did this?" he asked incredulously.

_"Affirmative. Apologies for last night's incident; result of failed first attempt."_

"Wha...?"

He didn't completely understand, but he could worry about that later. For now he shoved it all to the back of his mind and focused on finding out if this was really all that it seemed.

Carefully he swung his legs off the side of the bed and sat on the edge, feeling the carpet between his toes and marveling that such a simple thing could make him so incredibly happy. He'd thought he would never feel anything between his toes again.

But no matter how happy he was now, he was suddenly afraid to do anything else. What if it didn't work? He knew his legs were weak from months of not being used...if this were really happening it would take a bit of time to really get the strength back into them...but what if it just didn't work at all? The irrational part of him was suddenly afraid that if he tried to stand that all of a sudden it would all disappear. Nothing would happen. Charles sat there for a long few moments, staring at the floor and at his feet and holding onto the corner of the headboard.

He glanced back at Bug, and the little robot made a small forward motion as if to say it was all right. Charles wasn't so sure, but he held onto the headboard more firmly, bracing himself.

Then, very slowly, he stood up.

He stood up. It worked. He felt wobbly, and he nearly fell back onto the bed, but he straightened again and was fine. "God...oh god, oh god..." He let go of the headboard and took a small step. Then two. Suddenly everything was blurry, and he had to stop, but after a moment he realized it wasn't that he was dizzy. There were tears in his eyes.

Charles blinked them back, and when he managed the few more steps to the closest chair he laughed. He looked for Bug again, but the little robot wasn't on the bed anymore. He was nowhere to be found. Charles wasn't concerned; Bug had probably just gone back to Buffy's room. But he'd wanted to thank him. Or...thanking Bug wasn't enough. But what did one give a machine that needed nothing? Nothing was enough for this.

Charles was laughing again as he made his way between the furniture in his room, and finally ventured out into the open space between the bed and door. By then he was already feeling much stronger, and he had to wonder if Bug had given him some sort of energy, as well, as Buffy claimed the robot had been able to give her.

He spun in place, amazed that he could do it without losing his footing and toppling over entirely. He resisted the urge to call to his friends with his mind. He wanted to see if he could make it up the stairs himself. It wasn't a good idea, but right now he didn't care. He was just spinning to bolt for the door when it opened.

"Charles!"

It was Buffy, with Bug on her shoulder. The little robot must have gone to get her. She was staring at him now, mouth open and eyes wide. "It worked..." she trailed.

His eyebrows went up. "You knew about this?"

"Not until after we all left your room last night. Bug didn't tell me until just before he came back to try a second time...did he tell you what happened...?"

"That the incident last night was because of his first attempt? Yes. I...well, I don't suppose I can complain." He chuckled uncertainly, and glanced down himself. Standing. "My god, I never thought..." he breathed.

Buffy was on him in an instant, hugging him happily. Charles returned the embrace gratefully, and when he let go Bug jumped from Buffy's shoulder to his.

"Thank you," he said to the little robot.

 _"Of course. However, still uncertain as to life of solution."_ Charles realized Bug had said that before, when he'd first woken.

Buffy looked at the robot sharply. "You mean you don't know if it'll last?" she asked.

_"May last. Likely will last."_

Charles winced. "Yes, let's...stay with that, for now." It _would_ last. It had to.

Buffy nodded in agreement. "I'm sorry; he didn't tell me that part before..."

"It's all right. It worked, didn't it? It's working now. That's certainly more than I ever could have hoped for before." He looked up suddenly. "Hank. Alex. Sean."

Buffy grinned now. "Oh, this should be fun."

Charles smiled back, and Bug must have sensed that he was about to do something because the robot hopped back to Buffy just before Charles hurried around her and out the door of the bedroom.

"Charles? Wait! Where are you going?"

"To wake them up!" he called back.

He heard her following him. "Maybe stairs aren't the best idea—!"

"Buffy, please! I've had doctors and friends and everyone else under the sun telling me what I _can't_ do for months now. I'm through with it!" He rounded the base of the stairs and started up. He tripped on only the second step, but he didn't give up. Going up was much harder than he remembered, but when he held onto the railing he could make it all right. Now he was certain Bug must have given him energy along with whatever it was that the little robot had done. Under normal circumstances it probably would have taken days or weeks to gain enough strength back in his legs to get up these stairs.

"Hank! Sean! Alex!" Charles called once he was at the top. "Wake up, the lot of you! You won't believe this!" He went to the first door on the left and pounded, just as Buffy made it to the top of the stairs behind him. "Hank! Hank, get up! Hank!"

The door was flung open in front of him, nearly making him lose his balance, but he steadied himself on the door frame and dropped his arm again as he looked up.

Hank McCoy, having obviously just woken up, was standing there in shorts, staring at him, frozen in place now. "Charles..."

"Bug did it," he explained. "I-I don't know exactly _what_ he did, or how, but..." Behind him two more rooms opened as Sean and then Alex hurried out into the hall, stopping short in shock when they saw Charles standing at Hank's door.

"What the _hell_?" Alex said.

"I don't believe it..." Sean trailed.

He told them too, what he had just told Hank, and Buffy confirmed it all from where she stood at the top of the stairs and explained that what had happened during the night was also Bug's fault. Just as Charles didn't, the rest of them didn't seem to care about that part. They were too busy being shocked at the results of Bug's successful second attempt.

Charles turned back to Hank, and as soon as he did he was attacked again. Hank had never exactly hugged him before, but he certainly was now. He didn't say anything, but he held on tightly for a moment before letting go and standing back to look at him again.

"I don't believe it, either," he said, quite seriously. "But you have no idea how glad I am for it."

Charles broke into a fresh grin, and this time Hank grinned back. Then he looked back to Alex and Sean again, who had closed in now and began laughing and clapping him on back in congratulations. He couldn't help but laugh with them, though he had already done plenty of it this morning.

After a few moments he wondered where Buffy was, but when he glanced toward the stairs she was still there. She just wasn't joining in—giving the four of them their time. He smiled at her and she smiled back, and then Charles cleared his throat. He had to clear his throat because he was a bit afraid he might cry if he didn't do it before he tried to speak again.

"Well...what are we all standing about for? We have a creature to find."

They got moving. Hank, Sean, and Alex ducked back into their rooms to get dressed and get their things, and Charles headed back down the stairs with Buffy. He thought perhaps he could go down more easily than up, and that was true, but not holding onto the railing was a mistake. He came down too hard once, and a leg buckled, and he would have skid down several steps and landed on his ass if Buffy hadn't caught him.

"Watch it!" she scolded. "I don't know exactly what Bug did, but you don't want to ruin it on the first day."

"Sorry. You're quite right, of course; it's only..."

"I know," she smiled.

"Yes, well...thank you."

"No problem. That's exactly what a Slayer's for; to catch the idiots going too fast down the stairs."

Charles chuckled, and they continued to the bottom. They parted at her room, and he continued on to his own. Once he'd shut the door behind him he stood where he was for a moment, feeling the carpet between his toes again and resisting the sudden urge to run to the bed and jump on it.

Then he gave in. Just for a minute or two. Heeding Buffy's words, when he stopped he landed on the bed and then stepped down to the floor instead of just jumping off the bed.

Now. Any further silliness could wait until the problem with this demon was resolved.

Maybe.

Still grinning to himself, Charles went to dress and make certain his bag was packed properly.

* * *

Charles wanted to drive, but after a good bit of haggling Hank and Buffy managed to convince him to wait until at least the next day—just to be sure his condition was stable enough. So Hank drove instead, and the other three young men opted for the back and allowed Buffy to ride shotgun. That would have made her happy enough, but the car itself was interesting. It was from the sixties, after all, except instead of being old and dilapidated like Giles's old car—which had to have been that old, but she wasn't sure—it was newer and black and shiny, and Buffy felt like she was in a period movie.

Well, she was in a period, at least. That part was definitely true. She was in 1963, and though she wasn't nearly as big a history buff as Giles, it was still cool. Maybe she wasn't a geek, but she was at least able to realize that this was cool.

Hmm. Giles. She didn't know exactly how old he really was, though she had a pretty good idea. Wouldn't he be alive now? He'd probably be a really little kid, but she was pretty sure he was alive now.

Giles...

Buffy had to stop thinking about it before she started to worry too much. There was nothing she could do from here and now.

With the recent development of Charles being able to walk on his own Hank was in a better mood, and didn't argue as much when Charles tried to suggest that he should probe the areas they'd selected with his mind when they arrived at each one, to save time. If there was nothing there, there would be no reason for any of them to get out of the car. On the stipulation that he be careful, everyone warily agreed.

It did save time. They stopped at each point they'd chosen, and each time Charles spent several minutes of concentration determining if there was anything of interest nearby. When there wasn't, they moved on. As the afternoon grew long and they neared the end of their route, it went a bit differently at one stop. Charles wasn't sure, and he didn't look happy about the fact that he wasn't. He said he thought he sensed something on the edge of his range that might or might not be the demon.

The problem was, that since he didn't know quite what his range for the demon was, he didn't know how far away what he sensed was. So they got out and looked around for a bit, searching for any signs that the Kaltar had been there.

Buffy finally did find something—a trail through the woods a good ways back from the road that looked much like the one near the mansion. "Here!" she called. The boys came running, and she pointed it out to them. "At least we know he is out here somewhere."

"This thing really is fast, though," Charles commented. "I'm not sensing anything now. It's too far off."

Buffy pointed down the trail in the direction nearly parallel to the direction in which they'd been going all day. "That way?"

He nodded. "I believe so. We should get back to the car."

They started driving again, with Charles concentrating more constantly now. After a bit he stopped, scowling. "I don't understand."

"What?" Buffy asked.

"I think we gained on it a bit—I could feel it again, just at the edge of my consciousness—but then it vanished. It didn't speed up, or...it certainly isn't faster than the car. I haven't any idea how it could simply be gone like that."

Bug, who was riding on the dashboard, perked up. _"Kaltar demon's time portal device can also create portals through space. This function could be repaired separately, and it would be easier to do so. Less complex in relation to time travel function. If Kaltar has not entirely repaired device, teleportation function could be active."_

"Aw, hell," Alex huffed.

"Are you serious?" Hank asked incredulously.

Buffy glared at Bug. "You couldn't have mentioned that sooner?"

_"It did not appear to be a possibility sooner."_

"You have really got to get better at this sharing information ahead of time thing."

_"Apologies—was programmed in haste."_

Buffy let out a breath and rolled her eyes. Having Bug around was like having someone with Willow's IQ and magical ability, Xander's attitude and impulsiveness, and Anya's cluelessness, all rolled into one. Well...at least it helped a little with the missing her friends thing.

Since it was obvious now that their next move from here needed to be discussed, they stopped for the night in the next town they came across and located a small motel. Not that they would have any financial trouble staying somewhere else, thanks to Charles, but they decided to keep a low profile.

The motel was at the edge of town, and the rooms all opened to a small courtyard with a fenced-in pool that was locked thanks to the time of year. Spring was nearing, but it hadn't quite arrived yet. Still, it was a warm enough evening that Charles opted to linger outside in the courtyard for a while while it was still light. They had all night to decide what to do next, he said, and promised to be back inside once it was dark. The others stayed inside to eat and rest and begin discussing options, but Buffy followed Charles outside once she'd eaten some of the takeout they ordered.

The takeout was Chinese, which everyone else had wanted and Buffy had conceded to because she didn't want to make a fuss. She did like it, after all; the only reason she hadn't quite wanted it now was because it reminded her of the scene in the Magic Box just before she'd been dropped here. But she knew she should eat to keep her strength up, so she did. When she was done she swiped the last unopened box and carried it out to Charles, who she found...in a tree.

"What the hell are you doing?" she called up to him. He wasn't very far up—it wasn't a _huge_ tree—but it was just enough that it warranted shouting a little. He was just sitting there, watching the beginnings of the sunset, and he glanced down when she called to him.

"I wasn't sure if I was allowed up here, but I couldn't resist. No one ran out shouting at me when I came up, so I suppose it's all right."

Buffy just shook her head. "If you're gonna be stupid, do you at least not mind company?" She held up the food in her hand, and he chuckled.

"I'll come down."

"Carefully."

"Of course."

He made it down to the lowest branch, and when he lowered himself off to dangle from it by his hands his feet were only a foot or so from the ground. He dropped down easily, or not so easily. He stumbled and Buffy had to help steady him. When he was steadied she handed him the food and the unopened pair of chopsticks she'd brought with it.

"You should eat."

"You are right again, of course," he sighed. "Thank you." He took what she gave him and headed for one of the benches nearby. However, when he reached it he paused for a moment and looked at it, and then changed his mind and sat directly in the grass and kicked his shoes off, letting the grass between his toes.

Buffy raised an eyebrow and came to sit beside him, leaning against the side of the bench. "You're kinda strange; you know that?"

Charles grinned as he started in on his noodles. "I suppose I do, but right now I don't particularly care. I'm usually much more dignified, you know. I have a Ph.D. I'm sure I would have a teaching position at some university or another if none of this madness had happened. Not that I'm sorry it did beyond the...obvious negative aspects...and consequences. But...anyhow, all of that and yet here I am, sprawling in the grass like a child."

"Hey, I'm sprawling too."

"Then I suppose that makes you a child as well, for today."

She shrugged. "What the hey." Then her smile faded. "I've had to be way too much of an adult lately."

They both fell silent, and were quiet while Charles finished eating and set the container and chopsticks aside. They stayed where they were watching the rest of the sunset, though eventually they had to move up to the bench to see better and Charles put his shoes back on. They would have to go back inside soon. They needed to figure out where to go from here.

"I haven't been outside much, since what happened," Charles said eventually. "That's why I'd rather be out here just now." The sun was below the horizon now, leaving the sky in brilliant shades of orange, pink, and purple. He smiled sadly. "Staying in was easier than going out—reminding myself of what I couldn't do. I've hardly left the house for any reason at all, really," he admitted.

"In months?"

He nodded. "In months. I know it's awful."

"Sorry, but it kind of is." Buffy kicked at the grass at the base of the bench. "I used to hate the outside, but...now I have to be outside every night with my job—patrolling for vampires, demons, you name it—and I don't know what I'd do without it now." Buffy smirked to herself, remembering the way she'd been back in L.A. Before Sunnydale. Before she was the Slayer. "Remember how I said I was a cheerleader once?"

"I do, and I didn't quite believe it then either."

"Yeah. I was a cheerleader, I was popular, and I was about as deep as a puddle."

"You're joking," Charles insisted.

"Believe me; I wouldn't do that."

"I don't believe it." He chuckled. "Though I don't suppose I can say much; I have certainly had my moments."

"And of course I don't believe that at all," Buffy grinned. Charles smiled back, and they fell again into amiable quiet. Meanwhile the colors began to fade from the sky, and the streetlights in the courtyard came on and drowned out what was left.

"Well," Charles frowned. "I don't suppose we'll be able to see the stars now."

"Huh..."

She glanced over at him for a moment, as he tried to squint through the soft glare of the lights that still managed to blot out most of the sky. "Why don't you want to talk about your sister?" she asked, before she could stop herself.

Charles turned to her in only mild surprise, and Buffy guessed maybe he'd seen that coming. "I'm afraid that's part of that horribly long story—the one I doubt we have time for at the moment."

"Abridged version?" Buffy asked kindly, also proud of herself for the big word.

Charles studied her briefly. "If I tell you about mine, why don't you tell me about your sister, and why you've been so worried about her."

Buffy's eyebrows went up, but already she wasn't really surprised when he just seemed to know something that she hadn't told him.

"Okay...deal."

Charles nodded once, and looked away before he began. "Her name is Raven, and my family took her in when we were young. She was a mutant, like me, and I had never met another. As a child I sometimes thought I was alone, until the night she broke into the house."

"Broke in?" Buffy asked incredulously.

"That's right. Broke in, looking for food. Or rather snuck in, looking like my mother. You see, her mutation is quite different. She can change shape, to look like anyone she pleases, but her natural form is blue, with patterns on her skin...orange hair, yellow eyes. I imagine her ignorant family thought her a monster; abandoned her. But she never really gave me the details, and I don't blame her." Charles shrugged. "She began using a form that was roughly what she would look like if she looked normal, and she became my sister. We grew up together after that. We were never apart, even in college. She wasn't interested in higher education herself, but she lived with me in England while I was at Oxford."

That piqued her interest. "Oxford? Really?" Buffy asked in surprise.

"I take it you've heard of it then."

"Yeah. Giles went there."

"Did he now? Though I'm sure from here that would be at least a good ten or fifteen years from now."

"Something like that," she agreed. "I'm not exactly sure when he was born; I was just thinking earlier how he'd be a little kid right about now. It's kind of weird to think about."

Charles looked thoughtful. "I wonder if I'll still be alive in your time. Knowing me I'm likely to get myself killed long before that," he joked.

"Don't say that."

"Anything could happen, of course. Though I'm sure Raven will still be about somewhere. Besides the fact that she's very good at taking care of herself, Hank seems to think she's only aging at about half the rate that the rest of us are. He did a few tests before she ahm...before she left us..." He winced, and the temporarily light mood vanished.

"What happened?" Buffy asked gently. "Where is she?"

He shook his head and grimaced. "I don't know," he answered painfully. "I haven't any idea where she is."

He glanced at her, and she silently urged him to go on. Buffy had the feeling that he hadn't talked about any of this at all, with anyone. She knew what that felt like, and what it looked like. Maybe he just wasn't the type, or maybe he was like her—he would rather not burden his friends. But he hadn't talked about it, and he needed to. She'd talked to Giles at least, when she found out about Dawn, and she had him to help her figure out what to do about Glory.

But somehow she didn't think Charles had someone he told everything to. Not since Raven had left, wherever she'd gone...and why.

Charles sighed heavily. "The very short version of what happened is that...well, that we had a difference of opinion."

"A fight," Buffy translated.

"No, actually," Charles countered. "We never fought." Buffy raised a skeptical eyebrow at him, and he amended. "Well like any siblings we had our spats—our smaller differences—but I can never remember a time when we were at each others' throats, or anything close to it. She is my oldest friend, and for the longest time she wasmy _only_ friend." He blinked several times, not looking quite at her anymore. "God, I wish I knew where she was."

Buffy reached for his hand and squeezed it a bit. "I'm sorry."

Charles squeezed back in acknowledgment. "We didn't part on exactly bad terms, really, but that hardly matters."

"I know. You miss her." That much she could understand more than anything else right now, and Charles, of course, knew where her thoughts went. He glanced at her, and slipped his hand from hers so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders.

Buffy almost had more questions now than answers, but she wasn't going to encourage him to talk anymore tonight if he didn't want to. She had a general idea now of at least some of what was haunting him, though she had the feeling that there was much more. But she knew enough for now. She didn't want to push him.

"My sister isn't technically my sister either," she told him. "Not that it matters to me."

"What do you mean?" Charles asked.

Buffy motioned to her head. "You're not gonna believe me if you don't see for herself."

He looked at her in confusion for a moment, but then his eyebrows shot up. "Good lord," he said eventually. "Are there really people so powerful that they can completely alter perception like that? Play with reality so entirely?"

"Apparently so. I have a sister now, don't I?"

Now Charles just looked fascinated, and his arm drew back from her shoulder as he talked, turning toward her now. "I wonder if the old memories have been replaced, or just locked away. Perhaps if I—" He brought his fingers toward his temple, but Buffy caught his hand.

"Whoa! Stop right there. Dawn is my sister and I'd rather remember it that way, thanks."

"I could always lock away again anything that we found."

"It's okay. Thanks for the offer, but...no."

He smiled in apology. "I'm sorry. I suppose I shall simply have to live with my curiosity."

"I suppose you shall."

"Are you mocking me?" Charles asked in amusement.

"Of course not. I'm just teasing. I do it to Giles all the time; you should be flattered you rate such treatment."

At that he laughed, and it seemed the funk he'd fallen into was a thing of the past for now.

But then his smile abruptly disappeared, and he gave a small cry and reached for his head.

"Charles?" Buffy asked in alarm.

"It's here!" he gasped. "The demon! It's close!"

"How close?"

"Close!"

She shot to her feet, looking about warily. "How did it get close without you noticing earlier?"

"I don't know! One moment it was nowhere within my range, and the next it was here. That could _not_ have happened unless Bug is right and he's repaired the teleportation function of his device."

"Damnit...where? Where is it?"

Charles stood up now, and in a moment he spun to face the back of the courtyard, where a break in the half square of rooms allowed for a passage to the other side of the buildings. This being the edge of town, there wasn't much on the other side—fields and trees and the roads. And now the opening darkened, and a large shape emerged from the passageway.

The Kaltar's face was plastered with what passed for a smug grin, and it was staring straight at Charles.

"So this is the telepath who has attempted to find me," it commented in its gravely voice. "Strange...I thought you would be taller. You are more powerful than others of your kind whose paths I have crossed in my own time." The demon smirked. "But not powerful enough to pose a threat to me."

Charles glared at the creature. "I know what you want here. I must warn you that we will not allow you to harm Miss Summers."

The Kaltar laughed, and the sound was horrifying. "'We?'" it mocked. "You and what army?"

 _Charles, I would be getting the guys out here right now if I were you..._ Buffy thought urgently. Bug was inside too, and she didn't even have the axe. She'd brought it inside from the car so it would be there if she needed it, but yeah—it was inside. She was out here. And hand-to-hand with this thing hadn't proven very effective the first time. And she couldn't risk running in to get it now, with Charles still out here. The demon could easily kill him in the twenty seconds she would be gone.

_Either get them out here or get inside! Charles! Listen to me!_

She didn't know if Charles heard her. He and the Kaltar were still engaged in a rather intense stare-down, and she couldn't tell whether or not Charles was trying to do something. _Don't do something stupid! Move!_

But Charles _wasn't_ listening. He was bringing his fingers to his temple, and Buffy knew that couldn't be a good idea.

It wasn't. Hardly a moment after he had them there he shouted and staggered back, and Buffy had no choice but to jump into action.

"Stop it!" She wrenched the metal arm rest from the bench and launched herself over it with the makeshift weapon to attack. She noticed the burn that still marked the demon's side from Alex's energy beam, and she attacked there, bringing a roar and quick retaliation. Buffy got in a few more blows this time than the first, but the battle would have turned against her very quickly after that if Hank, Sean, and Alex hadn't hurried outside.

Hank jumped onto its back and tore at its face with his claws, scratching but causing no real damage before the demon threw him off. Sean shrieked and the Kaltar staggered, but so did everyone else; they hadn't had warning enough to cover their ears. Still, it gave Alex the chance to shout for everyone to get behind him, and Buffy obliged. Now that she had a chance to look for Charles she found him braced against the trunk of the tree he'd climbed, his fingers still to his head as he focused on the demon. His face was a mask of pain, but he wasn't stopping.

Buffy glanced back to the battle as Alex fired, and though a stray disc of red energy cut the bench in two, one of them also caught the Kaltar across the chest. It roared again, and made as if to charge forward, but then...it hesitated. Just for a second. Behind Buffy Charles shouted and doubled over, and she ran to him.

"Charles, that's enough! You don't have to do that!" Not if it was going to hurt him like that.

He lost whatever control he'd found, and as he collapsed the demon surged forward again. Buffy caught him and lowered him to the ground against the tree trunk, and hurried back toward the battle as Alex fired again. The Kaltar dodged the blast this time, and paused to glare across the courtyard at Charles. Or she was pretty sure it was glaring at Charles.

And then it retreated. No smart remarks this time; no nothing. It just left.

Hank started to go after it, and Alex and Sean looked ready to follow. But they all heard the popping sound through the passageway, and the guys stopped in confusion.

"What the hell was that?" Hank questioned.

Buffy let out a breath. "It means there's no point in going after it. You won't find it," she said grimly. There was nothing else any of them could do now, so she went back to the tree and knelt beside Charles, who didn't look so good. But he was still conscious, and he grimaced apologetically.

"I'm sorry. I-I...I had it, just for a moment, but its mind..." He was pulling in deep breaths, and he definitely seemed to need them.

"Hey...it's okay. You tried, and that's probably more than you should have done."

"Perhaps," he admitted weakly. "But I had to try."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm all right. Just winded, really." He smiled, and she almost believed him.

"Uh-huh. Come on; let's get you inside." She offered a hand, and he took it and allowed her to help him up. Then the others were there, and when it was clear Charles was a little unsteady on his feet just now Buffy let Hank take him, pulling Charles's arm over his shoulder and helping him inside. Buffy trailed behind the rest of them back to the rooms, keeping an eye on her new friend.

 _Now what?_ She wondered.


End file.
